Before leaving the relative safety of the Morphai hub, Mireia spent some time assisting Grok, using her innate control over water to purify a sizable container of murky, salvaged water far more efficiently than their filters could manage. Flareon, meanwhile, grudgingly applied controlled bursts of heat to help Boltar's counterpart among the Morphai solder some delicate connections on a damaged amplifier, his frustration with the imprecise task warring with the necessity of the exchange. Information, in this broken world, was worth more than gold, and earning it required contribution.
As dusk painted the shattered skyline in hues of bruised purple and fading orange, Flareon and Mireia began the trek back to their own camp. The streets were quieter now, the earlier chaos subsided into an uneasy twilight lull, though the tension remained thick in the air. They moved cautiously.
Mireia murmured, picking her way over a pile of shattered ferrocrete.
Flareon grunted in agreement, scanning the shadowed alleyways ahead.
He paused, glancing back at her.
Mireia sighed, shaking her head.
Flareon whirled around instantly. Mireia stood frozen for a split second, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief, her hand instinctively flying to her neck. Protruding obscenely from the side of her throat, just below her jawline, was the hilt of a crudely made knife, its blade buried deep. Blood, shockingly dark in the dim light, spurted around the point of entry.
Time seemed to distort. As Mireia crumpled silently to the ground, something flashed through the air towards Flareon, another projectile moving with deadly speed. He reacted purely on instinct, throwing himself sideways, the object slicing through the air where his head had been milliseconds before, clattering harmlessly against a distant wall. It looked like a sharpened piece of scrap metal, hurled with vicious force.
Flareon roared, scrambling back towards her fallen form, raw fury momentarily eclipsing shock.
He saw movement in the deep shadows atop a nearby pile of rubble, a fleeting silhouette against the darkening sky. Rage surged through him, white-hot and uncontrollable. He thrust out his hand, unleashing a torrent of raw, incandescent flame that exploded outwards, engulfing the rubble pile in a sudden, blinding inferno. The heat was intense, vaporizing dust, melting metal scraps.
"COWARD!"
He screamed into the roar of the fire, straining his eyes for any sign of the attacker amidst the flames.
But there was nothing. Whoever it was, they were gone, vanished into the labyrinthine ruins as quickly as they had struck. The fire roared for a few more seconds, consuming nothing but debris, before Flareon forced himself to retract it, the effort leaving him panting, shaking with adrenaline and fury.
He dropped to his knees beside Mireia. Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the darkening sky. The pool of blood spreading beneath her on the dusty ground was terrifyingly large. The knife was lodged deep, severing the carotid artery. A wound like this was instantly fatal.
His breath hitched, a ragged gasp torn from his chest. He reached out, his hand trembling, hovering over the wound, wanting desperately to channel heat, to cauterize, to do something. But it was useless. There was no life left to save, no fire that could undo this brutal, sudden finality.
He knelt there for a long moment, the roar of his own fire still echoing in his ears, replaced now by the sudden, deafening silence of the ruined street and the horrifying stillness of Mireia's body. The fury drained away, leaving behind a cold, hollow ache of grief and failure. He had been right beside her. He hadn't been fast enough.
With a low groan, forcing down the wave of nausea and despair, Flareon carefully gathered Mireia's slight form into his arms. Her body was still warm, but terrifyingly limp. He rose slowly, cradling her gently, his gaze sweeping the surrounding ruins, every shadow seeming to hold a potential threat. His only focus now was getting her back to the camp, back to her people, navigating the treacherous path through the ruins while carrying the devastating proof of the city's descent into murderous chaos.
The return journey was a blur of hypervigilance and crushing grief. Flareon moved through the darkening streets, Mireia's lifeless weight a constant, agonizing reminder in his arms. Every shifting shadow, every skittering piece of debris in the wind, sent jolts of adrenaline through him. He kept glancing back, scanning rooftops, expecting another attack that never came.
He reached the reinforced entrance of the Sorcerai camp, his breathing harsh, his face a mask of grim exhaustion. Ferran was on watch, his usual stoic expression dissolving into shock and horror as he saw what Flareon carried.
Ferran stammered, stepping back to let him pass, his eyes fixed on Mireia's still form.
Flareon didn't answer, couldn't answer. He walked numbly into the main hall, the steady elemental light suddenly feeling harsh, intrusive. The other Sorcerai turned from their evening tasks. Conversations died. A collective gasp went through the small group as they saw Mireia.
Seren, who had been discussing route planning with Gravus, covered her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. Boltar, who had been arguing quietly with Fujina about power distribution, froze mid-word, the crackling energy around him extinguishing abruptly, leaving only stunned silence. Gravus stepped forward, his heavy features etched with disbelief and sorrow. Fujina simply closed her eyes, her face pale.
Flareon carefully laid Mireia down on the cleanest available pallet, arranging her limbs gently, closing her sightless eyes. He knelt beside her for a moment, his shoulders slumped, the sheer weight of the loss settling over the entire camp like a suffocating shroud.
"THEY AMBUSHED US!"
His voice was rough, raw, laced with venom. He paced back and forth in the small space, too agitated to stand still.
"ON THE WAY BACK! JUST... OUT OF THE SHADOWS!"
He slammed a fist against a nearby support pillar, making Ferran flinch slightly.
"A BLADE! THROW! HIT HER BEFORE I EVEN REALIZED..."
He gestured helplessly towards Mireia, his voice cracking with self-recrimination.
"Another one came for me. I dodged it. Scrap metal, sharpened. Cowardly!"
His pacing grew more frantic, his gestures sharper.
"I saw them! A shape! On the rubble! I burned the whole damn pile!"
He sucked in a ragged breath, the memory fueling his fury.
"But they were gone! Vanished! Too fast!"
He stopped, whirling to face the stunned group, his gaze sweeping over them, challenging, accusing.
"This city! These... animals!"
He spat the words out.
"We try to survive, we share what little we have, Mireia heals their wounded... and this is how they repay us? With ambush? With murder?"
His voice rose, echoing in the sudden quiet of the camp.
"They're not just desperate anymore! They're hateful! They resent us for surviving, for having power they don't understand! They see us as targets!"
He turned back towards Mireia's body, his shoulders slumping slightly, the fiery rage momentarily giving way to the crushing weight of loss.
"She... she deserved better than this. Better than dying in the dirt of this cursed, collapsing city at the hands of some gutter rat."
He looked back at the others, his expression hardening again, his eyes burning with a cold, dangerous fire.
"Gravus was wrong. Showing restraint... it didn't earn us respect. It earned us contempt. It painted us as weak. They think they can pick us off one by one."
His gaze met Boltar's across the room, a shared understanding of volatility passing between them.
"Well, they're wrong."
Flareon's furious words still hung heavy in the air when a new, terrifying sound ripped through the relative quiet of their sector. The deep, guttural thump-thump-thump of heavy automated weaponry firing in sustained bursts, followed by the high-pitched whine of energy discharge and the shattering impact of projectiles.
"What in the-"
Boltar started, whirling towards the entrance.
The sound was coming from the outer perimeter walls of Starbreach, sections supposedly still partially powered and defended by the Confederacy's famed automated turret systems, running on independent Aetherium cores. But they hadn't fired since the initial catastrophe.
"Turrets!"
Ferran yelled, recognizing the distinctive sound signature.
"Something's triggered the perimeter defenses!"
Gravus was already moving towards the entrance, motioning for the others to stay back.
"Wait! Don't rush out blindly!"
But the firing intensified, a relentless barrage shaking the ground beneath their feet, the impacts echoing off the ruined buildings. Curiosity and alarm overriding caution, several of them, including Flareon, Boltar, and Seren, cautiously followed Gravus and Ferran towards the reinforced entrance, peering out through protected slits.
Through the dust and gloom, they could see flashes of light erupting from the dark shapes of automated turrets positioned on a relatively intact section of the city's outer wall several blocks away. Muzzle flares lit the night sky, streams of tracer rounds lanced outwards, punctuated by the brighter discharge of energy cannons.
Their target was high above, silhouetted against the bruised twilight sky. Another Voidwalker.
This one was even smaller than the one reported from the Wastes, perhaps only thirty meters long, closer in size to a large terrestrial flyer than the behemoths previously sighted. It seemed disoriented, perhaps drawn by the residual energy signatures of the city or simply blundering into the automated defense zone.
And the turrets... they were effective.
Unlike the overwhelming power that had crippled the city's main Aetherium network, the localized, independent power cores of the automated defenses still functioned. Their targeting systems, designed by Versari ingenuity, locked onto the creature's numerous pulsating violet eyes. Streams of kinetic slugs and focused energy beams slammed into the Voidwalker with brutal precision.
Violet orbs burst like rotten fruit under the impacts. The creature jerked spasmatically in the air, its silent flight becoming erratic. More eyes winked out under the relentless barrage. It seemed to possess no effective defense against such concentrated, conventional firepower aimed at its vulnerable sensors.
With a final, silent shudder, its vast wing-like limbs faltered. It began to fall, tumbling end over end, plummeting from the sky like a stone. It crashed to the ground just outside the perimeter wall with a sickening, heavy thud that resonated through the ruins, sending up a plume of dust and debris.
The turrets fell silent almost immediately, their automated threat assessment apparently satisfied. An eerie quiet descended once more, broken only by the distant crackle of fires and the low moan of the wind.
Inside the Sorcerai camp, the occupants stared at each other, stunned.
"They... they shot it down?"
Seren whispered, disbelief clear in her voice.
"A small one."
Gravus noted grimly, his eyes still fixed on the distant wall.
"But yes. The old defenses worked."
Flareon remained silent, staring towards the fallen creature. Hope? Perhaps. But the image of Mireia's lifeless body still lay fresh in his mind. One monster falling didn't change the fact that another kind of monster, born of desperation and hatred, still stalked the shadows of Starbreach.