Liv couldn't breathe, the world in front of her swirled in slow motion, shapes moved around her darting in all directions. The distant cries of people in panic. She saw her father stumble backwards, her mother looking to her husband desperately. The room drifted with strokes of colour as people danced in fear at what they had just seen. Harold was now looking over her father, the white and electric blue of his threads, vibrating and shimmering as they engulfed her parents, as he spoke into her father's ear.

  She felt a tugging on her left arm, but didn't react, not knowing why someone would be tugging at her, then a hand on her shoulder that pulled her back, releasing all the air that she was holding in at that moment.

  She caught a glimpse of Grasci’s figure falling through the skies above the city of Det’em, stray beams of light struggling to keep up with the motion of its descent, the lights danced erratically around his falling figure, casting eerie shadows on Det’em, struggling to cling to his form as if alive. In the flickering, she saw a boy standing with his helmet off, standing at the front of the patio. The only thing still on the patio, like an island in a stormy sea. He watched the waning light over the city, as darkness took Det’em. The arm that was on her shoulder spun her around and the tugging on her left arm followed,

  “Liv! Liv!” Paba’s cries came loudly and penetrated her shock. Her head snapped around the room and she was immersed in a world full of sound, shouting from every direction of the room. Paba was looking over Liv’s shoulder, her small hand holding her own arm in a vice.

  “We’re leaving, now,” said Efreet placing his arm over her shoulders, his voice flat and calm somehow, but clear.

  “This way” called Angie from one of the doors, flanked by two guards who looked to Efreet, who nodded at them to let them pass. Did we? She didn't know what to think or how that had happened. The itch that had been under her skin for days now, since the Gala, ached, all over her body, under her skin, within her mind. It told her to scratch, to pull at it, to rip off the parts so that it may be satiated. She looked at her parents, now moving in Harold’s wake, Moran with five guards walking towards them.

  “Meno…” she said breathlessly looking back to him and just then saw under a burst of orange light followed by a thunderous crack as three explosions bloomed in the city simultaneously, casting a glow into the sky as Det’em screamed as though wounded herself. She heard the call. She was hit with a shockwave of heat that rushed into the patio and pushed back into Efreet’s arms, who held her up. Meno was still standing over the patio, now with his forearm raised over his eyes,

  “Meno, move!” Angie bellowed through the cacophony of sound.

  She looked back to her parents as Efreet pulled her away from the door and saw that Moran’s men were standing around him, Harold facing the Traes Commander, his threads crackling and becoming more blue, he was empowering himself, and then Liv saw the knife thrust into her old mentor's chest. Moran had delivered it with so much force that it raised Harold from the ground, his eyes going wide as her parents leapt to him,

  “No…!” Her scream tore out of her, her voice raw and broken, her body moving instinctively toward him even as Efreet dragged her back. Arrows of bright lights came shooting past her, hitting the doors and sizzling as they landed in the walls of the temple. She could no longer see her parents as she was pulled into another room.

  Meno heard the call from Angie, he turned, running through the patio, and he could see that they had Liv. He turned to look at the Traes, knowing that they were with… he saw the Commander do it, he saw the advisor pushed back with the knife in his chest, then heard the breathless embrace of the knife accepted into Harold’s lungs, even over the chaos of the room, he saw the Traes sprawl to try and stop it. He saw the Kryptea behind them, watching Moran’s moves. They weren't attacking him, they were watching.

  He heard the crackle of electricity, and looked in front of him to see the fully exo-suited soldier rushing toward him, he knew this was August, he knew that energy, that static burst. He needed to leave, he needed to get to his people, he couldn't save the Traes now, that was not his mission.

  He pushed his energy into his right leg like 6 had taught him, feeling it more than ever in his anger, his frustration, in his panic, and he launched toward the primer that he had once spared against, who he had once seen as friendly. Meno was under his chin before he could react, the new tech and the energy push he had learned from 6 giving him a massive advantage. He thrust his palm up to the soldier's helmet, he felt the neck move back and the body followed it, but Meno didn't let it go, he held the soldier by the helmet, feeling strength that he had never possessed before. He continued to run to the door that Liv, Paba and Angie had just run through, holding August in his arm, he used the soldier as a shield as he ran across the room. The bright blue bolts of energy crackled through the room as they fired at him. August had obviously had his shield up as none penetrated him.

  He made it to the door, and before passing threw the Traes guard against the wall with a crack, that split the wall, he could see the rush of red and beige as one of the Kryptea made their way to him, but he flung himself through the door first, leaving the screaming and crying of the Traes and their guests in the room behind.

  He was greeted by Angie, who had just thrown a small ball at the door that he had come from,

  “Move!” she bellowed, and Meno saw the homemade tech grenade fly through the air, hurtling toward the door as the flat tip of a Kryptea’s blade made its way through the door. The tech grenade burst and pulled the walls toward it. Gravity tech, a stolen piece that Paba had taken, reversed to pull. It brought the doorway down, and pulled the Kryptea toward the centre, into the collapse of the stone walls. It gave a hollow sound like a loud drop of water hitting a flat surface, as the open air swallowed the space around it, bringing a crashing down as the stone crumbled, releasing a wave of dust that dirtied the air, with only flashes of light as bolts of light shout through the room, illuminating it blue.

  The walls around them cracked and burst with sound, showering them with more dust. Meno saw Paba still holding onto Liv, their backs up against the wall, who was pale as a ghost, her eyes wide, and mouth fixed in an aghast expression. Efreet was standing over two Traes Guards at his feet as he knelt down in the corridor shooting a rifle down the hallway. They had been attacked too, by their own people. Efreet was with them though, he had remained loyal.

  Paba looked up at him, her face covered in dust and her eyes wide open, but she was tracking him well, she was still focused, realised Meno.

  “Let’s go,” he said to them, helping Paba with Liv staying low in the strobing blue cloud of the corridor. He saw Efreet glance back at them, he gave Meno a nod to confirm his allegiance, and then he felt Angie brush past him, a rifle now in her hands as she began firing down the hall, covering Efreet.

  “Get to the cache,” she said as she peered down her barrel firing, Efreet now joining her again. The room was blocked off behind them, and they needed to make their way forward three doors ahead. Angie said something to Efreet who was standing on the opposite side of the corridor to him and he rolled over to her side, allowing a path for Meno and Paba to drag Liv with them.

  “The Traes guards attacked us,” said Paba as she moved down the corridor at a swift pace, keeping low, but the other two were drawing the fire well.

  “Moran killed Harold,” Meno said breathlessly, taking most of Liv’s weight. She really was in shock. “The Kryptea are also on their… I think the Kryptea are with them,” he said, trying to piece everything that he had seen. “I think I killed August”, he said suddenly, feeling cold, the realisation sinking in. his body shivered, and he swallowed painfully, feeling how dry his mouth had become. He saw Angie glance over to him, but she didn't stop firing,

  “Later,” said Paba with a level of seriousness that was not usual to her as she pushed the door ahead of her open and allowed Meno and Paba to go through. She followed in quickly and started to go through the bag. Meno hadn't been with her when they dropped off the kit. Meno looked to the door and saw Efreet come in and immediately make his way to the open window, which Meno realised belonged to an office, perhaps Pac’s office. It was large, with the same setup as their apartments, a long open window which had a view of the edge of the city, and the mountain that the temple was carved into.

  Angie then came into the room back first, still firing with her right hand, pulling something from her exo suit with her left, and Meno saw three black labelled tech grenades. More gravity grenades. She threw them down the corridor and then closed the door. She immediately turned to them and Meno saw that Paba was frantically moving her hands across a datapad,

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  “You good?” the old soldier said to Paba, as Meno heard the strange hollow drop sound outside of the room, and then another two after that. The walls shook and more dust dropped onto them, he heard and felt crumbling and realised that the passageway must have been collapsing.

  “Coming up now” she answered with a level of calm that he hadn't expected. Efreet was looking at Liv, checking her for injuries. She was completely catatonic now.

  “Efreet, what are they saying on the comms?”

  “The temple has been breached by the YF and exo-suits. We’re in a siege,” he said and Meno noted that his voice was alarmingly calm, and again, it sounded different. He didn't seem to question that they had a plan to get Liv out, nor was he getting in their way at all.

  “It’s a fucking set-up, they’re using encrypted speech out there, they were prepared for this”

  “It was Moran”, Meno said, and this seemed to be enough for Angie, as she strained her ear just slightly to the door, it seemed that some guards had gotten through.

  “They’ve labelled us enemies of the Traes, they say that we attacked the Traes and that we are kidnapping Liv” Efreet continued, his hand up to his helmet, clearly receiving orders from the Traes comms. Liv, thought Meno, he had never heard him say Liv before. “They’re getting orders to capture us, not kill”

  Meno felt Paba passing something to him, across Liv who was loosely holding onto his arm. He grabbed it and felt the pack of small homemade grenades. Each labelled with a different colour,

  ‘Red is a bang-bang, white, smoke and the black is a reversed gravity bomb and blue is an outie gravity bomb’ she had told him. He tucked the small tech devices into the chest pocket of the exo suit.

  “That’s good at least,” said Paba, “They’re here”, she said, standing and moving over to the window, and Meno saw a dozen or so floating square platforms, the same ones that Liv had used during her speech at the Prelude Gala. A number of them floated up and shifted vertically lining up like a wall to cover the window, providing a shield against the outside. The rest flew into the room, and Paba quickly took position on one of them, gesturing the rest to follow, “Get on, we are going to use these to go down the side of the temple”, she said to Efreet and Liv. Meno still had hesitations about this plan, but they didn't have any other options now. He was glad that Paba had been able to call them up this high, he knew that she had been worried about range. It seemed that this contingency was their only option now though. Efreet moved Liv onto one, and she looked around with tears in her eyes, questioning what was happening.

  Angie had just finished placing some tech on the door, using medical patches to make them stick, and then moved hurriedly over to where Meno had now joined them on the square platforms. They took off and drifted over the balustrade, into the open air outside of the room. Meno suddenly saw the massive drop down the side of the temple and felt his stomach lurch. The rest of the platform panels moved around them, covering them like a boxy shell from above and to the sides. Angie crouched and held her rifle out, aiming into the room.

  He looked at Paba who had pulled her pendant off and pushed it onto the datapad, and they began to descend. Liv let out a whimper. Meno looked back into the room as the balcony barrier raised in front of him and saw two guards breach the room,

  “Cover,” said Angie, holding her arms over Meno and Paba who had Liv and Efreet behind them, and in a second the tech that she had placed on the door exploded in a brilliant flare of fire, shooting flames from the open window over their heads, one of the panels above them was hit by the blast and began to drop down unsteadily, clearly having portions that were still trying to levitate, but it’s weight proving too much. That wasn't comforting. It wouldn't take their weight if it got hit, and currently, they had two people on each. “Efreet?”

  “Insurgents have breached the third floor, looks like it’s a firefight”

  “I’m seeing the same thing”, said Paba who flicked up her hand releasing a hologram from the datapad which showed the full schematics of the temple. “They are fortifying the fourth floor with soldiers, but they could get overrun. We need to get out of the city," said Paba, she was controlled, but Meno could see the nervous energy pulsating through her. She had a shudder about her movements and voice.

  “They’ve just cut me off” said Efreet, touching his helmet.

  “Pass it here, they could be tracking us through it”, said Paba, holding her hand out quickly, the soldier pulled back defensively, and said,

  “I just did”

  They passed another floor and saw the room with another open balcony was thankfully empty. Angie kept her rifle facing forward, and Meno could see that Efreet was focused, his rifle in his hands too. Meno looked down through the panels that protected them down to the Agora and saw the carnage that had ensued. The sky was now lit with the dull glow of red as the buildings around the Agora cast off light from their fires. Smoke engulfed the base of the tower and he saw the chaos of people rushing into the temple, trampling over one another, screaming, fighting. He saw bodies strewn across the ground. The dull roar of voices like a raging fire.

  “Okay, we need to get out of the city as fast as we can” said Angie, not looking back at them, “Efreet stick with Liv, Meno you take the lead, I’ll cover our back, Paba you stay as our…” she trailed off, as a strange basey tone entered into the world, like a humming that rattled. It seemed to freeze her. “Fuck…”

  Meno followed her eyes to the right, and saw it coming down from the black sky, only visible with the reflection of the chaos below on its hull, with the faintest glimmer around it that Meno now knew was a gravity engine's bubble. The enormous monolithic Pillar drifted over the city, towering over even the statue of Det’er as it angled in and then straightened vertically to stand over the city. Meno could now hear the panic of the crowd over the humming of the thing, he heard them come back in pure terror, in a fear that he had not heard yet.

  “Paba, get this thing to drop faster”, said Angie looking upon the House Pillar that stood before the goddess of this world, before the statue of Det’er whose arms reached out to it in welcome, but the black Pillar, cast from steel and fire stood unyielding. Meno had seen this before, the Pillar on Gol had stood atop the mountain, implacably staring down at their little town, but this now, seeing it up closer, seeing its scale near the mountain temple, over the city now scorched with rebellion. He had gone cold, his breath had become irregular, and he almost didn't notice Liv pulling harder at him, as though trying to climb into his arms to hide from the symbol of the House's destruction. “That thing will shoot us right out of the sky if we…”

  There was a thump above them and before Meno knew what was happening, he was crushed under one of the panels that had been protecting them from above. He had miraculously been able to react fast enough to place himself over Liv before the full weight of whatever it was had hit them. He heard Paba scream, he heard two shots go off before he could get the panel off, and when he did, his stomach sank further. Angie was fighting it, her arms pushing against the red skin, the beige cloth. Archon did not have her sword.

  “Angie!” Meno screamed, as he watched the old soldier try and pull the Kryptea in for a head butt. Even with her tech back, it was useless, the female Kryptea pulled her head back dodging, released one of her hands and delivered a driving punch into Angie’s stomach. He heard air leave her as she folded over with the force. Efreet was trying to get back up again, and Meno saw his throw his hand up in the air, and twist his wrist, and suddenly, without explanation, he was no longer looking at Efreet, but the Kryptea was standing where he had been crouching. Meno looked back to Angie and saw now that Efreet was standing where the Kryptea had been. He swung around quickly and fired three short bursts from his weapon, but the Kryptea dodged all three as she deftly moved over the panels back to them.

  Meno tried to reach out to push her off the panels, but he was pulled back by Liv,

  “Not now!” he said, not looking at her. Paba was still screaming in fear, and then Meno felt someone thrown at him, and realised it was Efreet, the panels shifted below Meno, and he needed to regain himself as he pulled Paba closer to him. He looked back up and saw Angie’s face covered in blood with the Kryptea holding her by the neck.

  “Angie!” he said again struggling to free himself. She looked at him, clearly defeated, but something happened to her, and she had a sudden resurgence of spirit, her face contorting into a sneer, and she slapped the Kryptea’s arm down, grabbed her around the neck and used her other arm to lock her grip around the Kryptea’s neck,

  “Get him out of here, Paba!” she roared, as she pulled herself and the Kryptea off of the panels. Meno’s breath stopped, his world stopped, and time slowed in front of him. His arm reached out before him. He heard Paba screaming something, he felt the panels below him pull away from the tower, further into the open night sky as he watched Angie drop, Archon wrapped in her arms. He saw them sink in the air, the Kryptea struggling against Angie’s unwavering strength. He felt the collection of platforms become more unstable, and drift apart as they moved further away from the temple. He saw her and Kryptea hit a patio. He felt the panel below him drop on the right-hand side, and instinctively pulled Liv and Paba toward him. The echoes of screams around him. He saw Efreet balancing on two unstable panels, reaching out to them.

  He felt the panels hit the ground, pulling his feet away and he snapped to, focusing on what was happening to them, focusing on protecting Paba and Liv. He stopped himself from rolling, holding both of them close to him and digging his feet into the ground. They came to a stop, the panels flying off in different directions, and he was hit with the sound of Paba sobbing, Liv was not moving but Meno quickly looked to see that her eyes were still open in sheer panic and dread.

  “Is she alright?!” Efreet said running over to them before bursts of laser bursts started shooting across them, Meno covered the girls once more, trying to look up to the temple to see Angie, but he couldn't see anything, his eyes drawn to the Pillar that loomed over the city. “Get down!” Efreet cried as he dodged the bursts of light.

  Meno felt a hand rest over his shoulder, gently, calmly, he saw another hand reach over to Efreet who stretched out for it. He looked up and saw a blonde-haired man who was engulfing all of them.

  “Worrec…”

  Meno felt his whole body lurch, his head spun, his eyes drifted out of focus and then they came to, in a dark room. He blinked furiously, trying to adjust to the darkness of the room. He could hear all of the heavy breathing around him, Paba's erratic breathing through her sobs, but it was quiet outside, still. He felt Liv clench tighter.

  Worrec moved around them and then looked at Meno with a concerned expression, Efreet standing behind him, looking as though he had just taken a deep breath behind his helmet. Then Worrec spoke softly,

  “You did good kid”

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