I watch with awe as the setting sun paints the sky with swirling colors — the barley fields look set alight, blazing golden and red in the light. From my vantage on top, of one of the taller houses in Shirakaze, the world looks like a fanciful painting come to life. If only my company weren’t so grouchy, I might even be able to properly enjoy it.
Like in the forest, Troy looks at the beautiful scenery as if it personally offends him, spending more time glaring at it than properly enjoying it. While I’m willing to bet that the view isn’t what’s actually upsetting him, I do hope he’ll get over this before too long, given that we’re going to be spending a lot of time together in the near future.
As Baylee discussed with us in the transport, we are to act as the Mobile Response Team and spend our time either roaming or keeping watch from a high vantage point. We were all given GDF radios for use in communication, so one of the Field Teams can easily call us in if required, even if we can’t see them.
Still, it’s better to be able to see a threat coming than need to be called in. If isolated civilians get attacked, we’ll need to be able to see that and act accordingly before it’s too late. As such, our team consists of the fastest and most impactful members from both Team Picnic and Team Firestorm.
I was an obvious choice for the team. With my ability to step through my mist, I can travel relatively quickly, and the ability to heal any injured on the scene when we arrive will also be invaluable. Not to mention that, with Celeste, I’ll know instantly if an attack can be seen from above.
Contrasting my support, Troy and his teammate, Ken, bring the firepower — literally. As it turns out, Ken is the name of the red sentinel I knocked out in our team battle yesterday, and now he has something to prove. As such, he was instantly ordered to be the first one in the sleep rotation; he’ll need to cool off a bit before he’s much use to anyone.
Troy is the other obvious choice for the team, with his speed and offensive capability, he’ll be the one to actually arrive first and intervene in the fight. Ideally, by the time I arrive, the Volcora will have already been routed and I can get straight into healing.
Our team is organized into a very fine schedule, as set out by Baylee. At any given time, one member should be sleeping, another should be awake and in their rest state, and one should be awake and in their assault state. We’ll rotate through constantly, with whoever is in their assault state at any given time being the next to sleep.
As such, I’m still in my rest state as I sit beside Troy in his silvery outfit. His job will be to protect me and help keep a lookout tonight until it’s time for him to sleep and me to shift into my assault state to then guard Ken in his rest state. Safe to say that this whole rotation thing is going to absolutely doom my sleep schedule — not to mention that I’ve been paired with two hot heads.
We sit in silence as the sun continues its descent, the shadows lengthening and the darkness deepening as it slips behind the horizon. Looking at those growing shadows, it’s hard not to imagine volcora — like those I’ve seen in the incursion zone — hiding in them. Will we see more of those flying ambush volcora during our time here? What about a gazer? The mere thought of being locked in the gaze of one of those disgusting creatures makes me shudder.
It would be so easy for our little team — or one of the other teams protecting the townsfolk — to be wiped out entirely by something like a gazer. If all the nearby sentinels look at it before realizing what it is, then that would be the end for the team.
Beside me, Troy glances in my direction. “You seem nervous. Do we need to switch so you can be next to sleep?” he asks.
He advocated for being the first one to stay up all night, but Baylee decided that, with my experience, I should be the one awake longest for this first shift.
I shake my head, “We should all be nervous. I don’t know if you or your teammates understand how profoundly lucky my team got in our last incursion zone. I was just considering which of the things I’ve seen could easily wipe out our little group of three.”
Troy nods, “Also, you were in your assault state then, and now you’re in your rest state.”
I roll my eyes, “Gee, thanks for pointing that out. I feel way less vulnerable now.”
“Are you always this sassy?” Troy asks, raising an eyebrow. “You’re usually so nice and polite in class — it’s a little unexpected.”
I offer Troy the sweetest smile I can manage. “What can I say? You bring out the best in me.”
To my surprise, Troy laughs at this, fully and genuinely. Then, sitting back and leaning against his palms, he looks out at the darkening world before us.
“You know, I never would have taken you for the sentinel type. I always thought you were kind of a pushover. You've always rushed to help anyone in need, but you never stood up for yourself. That’s changed; you seem more confident now,” Troy says, his voice solemn.
I stay silent for a long time after that, considering his words as I watch the sky darken into twilight and start into true night. Eventually, I just shrug.
“I suppose,” I say softly, “that when you’ve been through the kind of experiences I went through in that incursion zone. Things like conversations don’t scare you as much. Did they ever tell you what happened to us in there?”
Troy shakes his head, “All we saw was you guys going in and coming out with more power and more authority.”
My eyes fall, “It was awful, Troy, truly, genuinely awful. I saw so many people die… I wasn’t even awake for the full thing either.”
Troy frowns, “You weren’t awake?”
“I got hit hard by a mental attack. A volcora called a gazer tried to fry my brain. I actually watched a soldier’s brain melt out his nose while his eyes turned into puddles on the concrete. My shield protected me from it being that bad, but I could hardly stand when it was over. If my teammates didn't use a regenerative serum on me, I’d probably be considered brain-dead by now. Oh, and that was before I got impaled on a piece of rebar,” I say softly.
I meet Troy’s eyes, “I don’t have words to explain how it felt. Just know that I truly thought I would die. I thought we would all die.”
Troy stays silent after my explanation, but now I see his eyes lingering on the deep darkness lingering at the edges of the town. “You think that will happen again here?” he asks, eventually.
“I hope that we’ll be able to just guard the town from nothing until they’ve got their grain and then get these people out of here,” I say. “However, yeah, I do think it will happen again here. It will only take one mildly strong volcora to cause a disaster until we deal with it. How many of those can we take? The logistics of this is nearly impossible; even with our organization, they can strike anywhere, and there’s only ten of us.”
Troy turns back and glances over the town with gleaming silver eyes. “Ten is better than five, though. Don’t you think? Maybe soon, some of the others will be ready, and we will be twenty or even thirty.”
“That’s assuming they’d send us all to the same place,” I comment dryly. “Still, it’s a nice thought.”
Our conversation dies after that as we both keep watch out over the town. One thing I never realized about keeping watch is how dreadfully boring it is. The tension that started to suffuse me as soon as I considered myself “on duty” has lessened over time, leaving me with a kind of dull anxiety as I watch the pools of light around the town for something, anything, to happen.
Eventually, I find myself looking up towards the glimmering stars in the night sky. On a clear night like this one, they’re brighter than I’ve ever seen them — not that you can really see the stars from the city. I watch as they glimmer in the sky, wondering whether aliens on distant worlds are also getting caught up in this conflict between Centurion and Volcora or whether it’s isolated to Earth. Maybe I’ll ask Althia the next time I talk to her.
After a few hours, Troy begins to shift, stretching his arms and legs. “I should probably go and switch with Ken,” he says with a yawn. “You’re sure you’re good until morning?”
I nod, “I’ll be fine, just find me a room with great blackout curtains to sleep in and I’ll be dandy.”
Troy gives a tired laugh, “I’ll look for one,” he promises.
[Serena, I see movement.] Celeste says in my head, causing me to jump to my feet, alert but not yet ready to jump into action. Celeste has seen movement a few times while flying above the town, and so far, it’s always just been some early riser out for a walk or the wildlife.
Still, I give Troy an insistent look, and he also comes fully alert, standing to loom over me as he surveys the area around us.
“Movement,” I whisper to him, then stand stock still as I wait for Celeste to get more information.
After a moment, Celeste says, [Look towards the barley fields, do you see what I do? Something moving through the crop towards the town?]
I turn, squinting in that direction. I can see the white shape of Celeste circling above the field, visible only to me, but I can’t see anything else moving in the long strands of barley. Well, nothing that couldn’t be the natural blowing of the wind.
Troy follows my gaze, also narrowing his eyes. “I see something…” he mutters, pointing.
I turn my gaze to the field closest to the town, then nod my agreement. The shift of the barley in that spot definitely seems like something moving through it. “Me too,” I respond, keeping my eyes locked on the rippling barley.
“Should we wake Ken?” Troy asks, “It could be just another wild animal.”
I decided to ask Celeste, “Can you get a closer look? Is it Volcora or something else?”
Then, I respond to Troy. “I’m having Celeste take a closer look. Depending on what volcora and how many, we might not be able to handle it with even the three of us.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“The Defensive Core Team will have members awake right now as well, and we can wake up everyone in a pinch. If it’s too bad, we contact everyone. No one will be risking their lives tonight if I can help it,” Troy says.
We wait in tense silence as I watch Celeste swoop in closer to the rippling barley, an instant later, a flare of panic shoots through my bond with Celeste and I instantly shift. In a flash of blue light, I’m in my assault state, bow in hand.
[Four… no, five volcora wolves!] Celeste alerts, and I curse.
From what I’ve learned in my classes about the Volcora since my last time fighting them, I know that the wolf variants are often used as vanguard forces. They aren’t particularly intelligent, but there are a lot of them, and they are horrifyingly effective at tearing through an unguarded population. Unlike natural wolves, these don’t hunt for food no… they hunt people for sport.
“Five wolf variants; all moving fast for the town,” I tell Troy my voice tense. From my experience, the wolves will be beatable, but the last time I fought them I had my entire team to back me up. This time, it’s just Troy, Ken, and maybe some of my team members might arrive to the fight in time. Yet, I’m stronger than I was last time, is the fight winnable?
Troy nods, his eyes still locked on the rippling barley. “Call for backup, then wake Ken and follow me. I’ll keep them away from the town until you arrive.”
My eyes go wide, “Troy! You can’t fight them by yourself!”
“I will provide the distraction; you get there quick and provide ranged support,” Troy says, briefly meeting my eyes. “I’m counting on you, Serena. I’ll need the Princess of the Archery Team.”
With that horrendously stupid statement, Troy bursts alight and leaps off the top of the building to rush towards the edge of the barley field in a streak of light.
I grit my teeth, looking after him, but dutifully produce my small black radio from my inventory.
“All sentinels, this is Serena. We are under attack! Report to the northern edge of the barley field closest to town as soon as possible! I repeat, we are under attack!”
A few minutes later, Ken and I rush toward the edge of the barley field, where I can still see the blazing light that is Troy dashing around several dark shapes. Ken is a fair bit faster than me, so he runs ahead to join his team leader while I follow by weaving strands of mist for me to teleport through.
As Ken and I arrive on the scene, things are already looking grim. Troy’s left arm hangs limply as he glares defiance at the volcora prowling around him — his assault state shield must have already been broken. A few of the wolves look to have some nasty cuts between the plates of their carapace armor, so Troy definitely got some hits in, but from the look of him, he’s taken the worse end of the exchange.
The volcora surround Troy, letting out that strange high-pitched whine in place of a growl — like an electric motor going haywire. As I watch, letters flash into existence above each wolf, a bright yellow E for each of them. I grit my teeth; all of these are about the same strength as the stronger one we fought in the incursion.
Ken crashes into the back of the nearest volcora, fists ablaze with crimson flames. He slams a punch down on the back of the wolf, and while the blow seems to mostly be absorbed by the creature’s chiton armor, it does seem to hurt it.
Even injured, Troy moves blindingly fast, darting between wolves and slashing at them with his blade — with the pressure Ken is putting on the fight, he has more room to move. Still, it will only take one more good strike to bring him down.
Finally arriving on the scene, I take a brief moment to try and find some high ground. Sadly, there aren’t any buildings this close to the field, but I do see a large harvester parked nearby. With an effort of will, I send a stream of mist up to the top of the harvester and teleport up to its roof.
Looking down on the fight, I narrow my eyes at the quick-moving brawl between sentinels and wolves. If I'm not careful, I could hit an ally instead of an enemy. This isn’t a fight they can win without me, though, so I guess I’ll just have to be careful.
“See if you can make me some openings!” I think to Celeste as I draw back my bow.
[On it!] she responds instantly.
A moment later, Celeste dives toward the brawl, swooping down to swipe at a more isolated wolf. Her attacks seem to hurt it, but only enough to annoy the creature. Luckily, it briefly pauses to try and swipe a paw at Celeste, and I use the opportunity to send an icy arrow hurtling into the creature with a crack of thunder.
The volcora goes down, and I don’t pause to look for longer than that, instantly trying to seek out my next target. My eyes lock onto a wolf that pounced on Ken, clawing frantically at his assault state shield as it holds him to the ground — much like the one in the incursion zone did to Akari. I take an instant to sight and fire, but my aim isn’t quite as perfect this time, taking the wolf in the flank rather than the center of mass. However, the arrow — and the cry of pain it elicits — is enough of a distraction for Ken to slip out from under the creature and begin hammering its skull with flaming fists. Luckily, it seems his shield hasn’t broken.
I try to find another target, but instead, I notice that one of the wolves has disengaged from the melee fight and is charging me. Unlike the last time one of these volcora tried something like this, I don’t panic. Instead, I thrust my free hand forward, and mist explodes out of me, covering the harvester and the area around it in dense mist.
This seems to give the volcora pause as it stops at the edge of the mist, sniffing and twitching its large ears. It must know that I’m still within the mist but it can’t know exactly where. A fact that dooms it.
My amulet works perfectly, allowing me to easily see through my mist, and a target standing perfectly still is hardly a hard shot for me at this point. I draw, aim, and fire, taking the volcora right through the eye and instantly killing the creature. Man am I loving this new bow!
Again, I shift my gaze back to the larger fight but find that Ken and Troy have already finished dealing with the remaining wolves. All that remains of the group of five volcora are charred and frozen corpses left at the edge of the barley field.
Instantly, my mind shifts from combat mode to healer mode, and I leap off the top of the harvester to rush to Troy’s side — my assault state shield flaring blue and cushioning my impact with the ground.
As I run, Celeste swoops in to fly above me, looking around for further threats.
A moment later, I arrive at Troy’s side. “I told you not to hold them off all by yourself,” I chide him. “Here, give me that arm.”
Troy gives his left arm a pained glance, “It’s just dislocated, I think, not broken. Honestly, I think you would have done a better job holding these off than I did. How are you a healer?”
I shake my head, even as I take his injured arm in my hands. “I’m almost helpless up close, so I have to keep my distance in fights. I’m good at avoiding rushes, but not perfect.”
Before me, Troy’s life force expands into a massive network of silvery stars and connections. Instantly, I can see that what Troy said is correct; the arm has been dislocated — the socket of his left shoulder has been removed from its proper position, and now the connections between it and the rest of his arm are broken.
Nodding to myself, I break my focus and look around for Ken — also noticing that several others from both Team Picnic and Team Firestorm have arrived on the scene. I put that out of my mind for the moment in lieu of helping Troy.
“Troy, sit down,” I order, sitting myself on the dirt and waiting for him to follow suit — which he does reluctantly, his eyes still on the waving barley.
I look up at Ken, who now towers over us like an anxious mother hen, looking nervously at Troy’s arm. “We need to set his arm again. Without the help of healing magic, this would be really stupid to do outside of a hospital, but we’re going to use magic to make up the difference. Ken, take Troy’s left arm and help him hold it out straight in front of him.”
Reluctantly, Ken follows my instructions, gently taking Troy’s arm by the wrist and holding it in front of him.
“Good, now, when I say three, you give his arm a sharp tug. Don’t pull hard; just a quick tug forward toward yourself,” I say.
Once again, I focus in on the network of lights, shifting my grip to Troy’s other arm. Focusing on the area with the broken connections, I push my sapphire power into Troy’s body and allow it to begin accumulating near the area. The connections quiver unstably, like they're trying to reform but the joint still hasn’t been connected. Distantly, I get the feeling that if I pour enough power into Troy’s arm, those connections will pull his arm back into the right place all on their own. For now, though, they’ll just act as a guide.
Allowing my sapphire power to reach a climax in Troy’s shoulder, I begin my countdown. “One, two, three.”
Ken gives Troy’s arm a sharp tug, harder than would be necessary, and his shoulder socket snaps back into place with an awful wet sound. Ken instantly turns away, looking like he wants to wretch, and Troy grunts in pain, gritting his teeth.
Luckily, the power I built up around the area finally begins to take hold, repairing the connections and fixing up all the red intruding in on Troy’s body. I smile, mentally thanking my teacher from the Sanctum Collective for briefly mentioning how to handle something like this. Although her advice was essentially, “When in doubt, do your best and let magic fill in the gaps.”
Watching Troy’s life force network carefully, I ask, “How are you feeling? Can you move the arm?”
Troy hesitantly glances over at his left arm — he’s been avoiding looking at it so far. Gingerly, he rotates his shoulder and bends his arm, growing more confident by the second. “It still hurts a little, but the pain is fading.”
As the last bit of red disappears from my view, Troy lets out a sigh of relief. “Stars am I glad we have a blue sentinel on this mission. It’s a shame you didn’t end up on my team.”
I wince internally at the idea. I’ve been growing more accustomed to Troy recently, but I still don’t exactly like him. Although, that’s been slowly changing. There’s something kind of respectable about this belligerent young man, and I have to admit that he does make for a good sentinel.
In response, I only give him a slight smile before looking around hesitantly. Only now do I realize that Troy and I have been trapped in a green bubble — Haruto’s shield. What?
I would stand up, but the bubble isn’t big enough for that. Instead, I peer through the semi-transparent green barrier and see my teammates, Haruto and Baylee from the Defensive Core Team, as well as Melody and Ken, putting down the remainder of another four volcora wolves that leapt out of the grain field.
Huh, I suppose Haruto deemed Troy and me too vulnerable to leave unguarded while I was administering healing. I make a mental note that, in the future, I need to ensure the fight is properly over before getting wrapped up in the healing process.
I would send Celeste, who now sits protectively on top of the bubble, to go and tell the others that we’re good to be let out and join the fight, but they don’t appear to need us. A few seconds later, the last of the wolves crumples to the dirt in a heap. Haruto slams his hammer down into its head several times to be sure.
Apparently, that final death is finally enough to push me over the line.
I glance over the message from the safety of my bubble, finding myself smiling. Another step forward, and many steps to come. If things keep up like this, I could hit D Rank on this trip! Each rank-up will be harder to progress through, but any progress is good progress. Shame that I didn’t get an ability, though. I’m hoping for something relating to my bow this time. While my nature as a blue sentinel means I’m far more likely to get another support-related power, I’ve used my bow enough that it’s highly probable I’ll get some kind of power revolving around it.
Eventually, Haruto must decide that we’re safe enough for now as the bubble around me and Troy vanishes, finally allowing us to stand up.
Together, we stride over to the members of the Defensive Core Team, who came running to answer our call. In total, nine volcora corpses are strewn around the edge of the field, variously burned, bludgeoned, and frozen.
“I think we handled this better than last time,” I comment to Baylee, looking over the dead wolves.
She nods solemnly, “We’re a lot stronger than last time. I’ll show these corpses to the mayor in the morning. We’ll see if that doesn’t light a fire under her to get these crops harvested and these people out of here.”
“If we weren't here tonight, this would have been a massacre,” Troy says, still experimentally stretching his shoulder.
I wince at his words, the thought of these wolves tearing through the town like a meat grinder popping into my head.
“Are we all good to keep up the normal schedule after this, or does anyone need a break?” Baylee asks, evidently not wanting to think about what could have happened if we didn't stop this group.
After getting agreements from everyone that we’re good to continue on with our regular schedule, Ken and I head back to watch while Troy goes to sleep. I can only hope that nothing else “exciting” happens for the remainder of my shift.
