The world burst into flame.

Bruno's body moved before his mind could register what was happening -- hands thrusting out to either side, a forcefield being projected around himself within half a second. Three layers of his strongest protections. He knew, instinctively, that he needed those to survive this threat.

This body was used to surviving, after all.

Bruno winced as the deafening sound of the explosion rang into his ears -- it was muffled slightly by the shields, but still loud as all hell. The second after it faded -- after the fire outside his shield scattered away -- the sound was replaced by a high-pitched ringing, drowning out everything else.

He felt a metal hand clap down on his shoulder -- and when Bruno turned his head, he saw Skipper standing there, voicelessly mouthing something. No, that wasn't quite right: he was speaking perfectly normally, Bruno just couldn't hear him.

Reading lips was a skill the Sed had been quite eager to teach, though. Bruno caught scraps of silent speech through Skipper's lightning-fast jabbering.

Ambush. Good job. Dragan. Be ready.

Bruno's mind caught up to his instinctive movements, and the situation became obvious -- the puzzle pieces fitting together completely.

They'd been ambushed -- an enemy had taken advantage of the swamp’s explosive qualities to try and blow them to hell. Bruno had managed to protect himself and Skipper with his forcefields, but…

Where's Mr. Dragan, Bruno? Serena asked innocently, her inner dialogue unaffected by Bruno's current hearing impairment. I don't see him anywhere.

Bruno's eyes widened. Shit. He'd protected Skipper without even thinking about it, but Dragan had been just the tiniest bit further away from the two of them. He realized now that he'd heard Dragan just before the explosion went off -- he'd shouted 'scatter' -- but now that the fiery explosion had once again faded, the Cogitant was nowhere to be seen. Where was he?

In pieces, most likely, said a traitorously sensible thought.

No -- Bruno rejected that. His eyes flicked down to the ground, where charred corpses were already floating face down. If Dragan had died in that explosion, his body would have been visible, identifiable from size at least. None of the bodies here looked anything like the Cogitant, though.

He was still alive. He had to be.

Dragan Hadrien was still alive -- somehow.

He stuck his head up out of the water, gasping for breath, doing his best to wade in place. The area he'd ended up in was a little deeper -- even if he stood on the tips of his toes, he'd only end up barely touching the bottom.

He couldn't panic, though. There was no way he could panic. More attacks would be coming before long -- an aerial opponent like Aka Manto had no reason to hold back, since they wouldn't be caught in any of the blasts themselves.

First course of action was to regroup with the others. Dragan looked around wildly, trying to spot Bruno and Skipper, but the fog here was even thicker than it had been before. He'd used his new technique to save himself from the explosion, but as a result he hadn't been able to see where exactly his comrades had gone.

Should he call out? No. There could be other enemies around, and he didn't want to stand out as a target. For the time being, the fog acted as protection just as much as an obstacle.

He couldn't stay here forever, though, either. Sooner or later he'd end up caught in an explosion. He had to get moving, regardless of the direction.

Dragan went to kick off the ground --

-- only to stop when he felt a cold hand seize him tightly by the wrist. He whirled around, ready to fire a Gemini Shotgun right through the face of his enemy…

...only to stop when he recognised the face of Lily Aubrisher. She was in a worse state than him -- shorter, her mouth barely managing to stay above the filthy swampwater.

"Help," she gasped, hacking back up a tiny fish-thing that quickly swam away. "Gonna die."

She'd acted like such a hardass that Dragan had almost forgotten she was pretty much just a kid. It wasn't like he felt bad for her or anything, but it would bother him if he didn't help her. Infusing his arms with Aether, he grabbed her and lifted her up, giving her some more room to breathe.

Lily spat what swampwater remained back down to the source as she gasped for breath. "What happened?" she rasped, wiping her mouth clean. "What the hell happened?"

"Told you this was a shit plan," Dragan grunted, infusing the tips of his toes with Aether to keep his stance steady. "Garth's Guardian Entity was waiting for us -- dropped a piece of flaming cloth right on our heads to cause an explosion."

“Fuck,” Lily hissed. “Where’s everyone else?”

As Dragan waded backwards, he found his feet making contact once more with dirt -- the ground rising up into some kind of shore. With a heave of Aether-enhanced effort, he pulled Lily up onto solid ground as well, the two of them falling back as they caught their breath. He reached down and massaged his legs -- he’d never been much of a swimmer, and wading in place for so long had done a number on him.

“Where’s everyone else?” Lily repeated, getting up on her feet, pulling her wooden sword out of its sheath.

They hadn’t wanted to risk sparking some kind of explosion, so before setting out they’d replaced their metal weapons with wooden equivalents. Dragan couldn’t speak for how effective they’d actually be, but the presence of an actual weapon served as a pretty good placebo all the same. Personally, Dragan would stick to his Aether any day.

The repeated question finally registering in his brain, Dragan answered as best he could: "No clue. I said to scatter, so there's no telling which direction they went in."

Or if they're even still alive. He didn't voice that last part -- even he had a little more tact than that.

"Or if they're even still alive," Lily muttered.

Welp.

Lily got to her feet, squinted as she struggled to pierce through the veil of fog that surrounded them. As she turned on the spot, she pointed her sword in front of herself protectively, like she was some kind of living compass.

"Our first priority should be regrouping," she muttered. "The spot they just got us in was fairly clear, so they could see us from the sky. If we move through the fog, like we are now, they won't be able to spot our location."

Dragan got to his feet too. "We won't be able to spot our location either, though. How are we meant to know which way will lead us out of the swamp?"

Lily bit her thumb as she kept turning, clearly unable to make anything out. “We’ll just have to play it by ear, I guess. The most important thing is that as many people as possible stay alive.”

“It seems we’re doing nothing but playing it by ear.”

Lily shot him a glare. In the haze of the swamp, it was the most clear thing he could make out. “You don’t need to be an asshole about it.”

Dragan wiped away as much of the mud on his hands on his pants as he could. “I’m not being an asshole. It’s a totally legitimate complaint.”

“Phrased in the manner of an asshole. You don’t need to--”

Gemini Shotgun.

The spear of blue light shot past Lily, striking the figure emerging from the fog just behind her. The man was hit in the throat, his wooden spear slipping from between his fingers as he fell backwards into the water, floating on the filthy surface for a moment before sinking beneath. In the moment before he bobbed out of sight, Dragan got a good look at him -- without a doubt, he was wearing the uniform of a Regulator troop.

Lily whirled around in shock, catching a glimpse of only the man’s hand before it was submerged.

“How’d you know he wasn’t one of ours?” she muttered.

“Easy,” Dragan replied, his blue Aether dying down. "If he was one of ours, he would have been calling out for his friends like an idiot. He'd have no reason to be sneaking up."

This meant they were in more danger than he'd first thought, though -- the Regulators had sent troops in to finish them off just in case the initial explosion hadn't been enough. He'd been entertaining the idea of staying in these small groups and trying to find their way out of the swamps that way, but going for that plan now would only entail making themselves easy targets.

Lily had the same thought, it seemed. "What about the others?" she asked. "We were only safe because of your Aether. It'll turn into a real fight for them."

It depended on the locations of Skipper, Bruno and Serena. They wouldn't have any trouble dealing with these assholes, so any groups that included them were probably safe. Any of the other rebels, though…

His train of thought was suddenly derailed by the boom of a distant explosion. Of course -- there was no reason for Aka Manto to stop at triggering only one explosion. He could just keep dropping fire down on them as much as he pleased, while the troops picked off any survivors. A ruthless strategy, but an effective one.

The words came hesitantly out of his mouth. “We… still need to regroup, I guess, but…”

But that wasn’t so easy either. There were two means by which he could send out a signal that the others could follow -- visually, by launching a Gemini Shotgun up at the sky, or audibly, by screaming an Aether-infused scream. Neither option was very appealing -- they’d alert that ghost up into the sky to his location just as much as it would signal his allies, and he very much doubted that Aka Manto would pass up the opportunity to eliminate any Aether-users he became aware of.

So long as that asshole was lurking in the sky, trying to regroup would only end with all of their deaths.

It was only fitting that rats would try to flee through nature’s sewer.

Aka Manto floated in the heavens as it observed the turmoil below, cloak waving around it in the wind. The sun was shining high in the sky, yet none of that divine light pierced the fog below, so undeserving were its inhabitants. Only small slivers of visibility were present in that abyssal cloud, through which the rustle of furtive movement could occasionally be seen. The movement of the enemy.

It was nothing more than the invitation for execution.

Aka Manto’s eyes locked onto the shift of a cloak far below -- and without even a moment of undue hesitation, he dropped another flaming strip of cloth. It spiralled down towards the ground like a celebratory wreath and -- just before it pierced the veil of clouds -- exploded into holy fire, consuming whatever unfortunate deviant happened to be lurking below.

There was always the possibility that it was one of Garth’s men, too, but they were easily replaceable. It would be worth losing a few of those specimens for the sake of eliminating this threat.

This threat to XK-12’s peace had been a near-constant presence throughout Aka Manto’s tenure -- every head of the Regulators had been required to fight against this enemy, and every one of them had achieved at least a temporary victory. The enemy was insidious, though: so long as the slightest trace of their ideology remained, they would once again reappear.

The conflict had never escalated to this level before, however -- the star from the hell outside had changed things irreversibly. It had made this battle more vital, to be sure, but it had also created an unprecedented opportunity: to annihilate the enemy once and for all. They would kill these rebels. They would kill rebellion itself.

And once that was done, there could be peace.

Boom. Boom.

Aka Manto’s ears pricked up. It hadn’t created those explosions -- they were more like concussive blasts than the incendiary judgement it had been raining down. Was something else happening down there? Something it hadn’t foreseen?

It saw something down below.

A tiny shape down on the ground was quickly becoming bigger -- becoming humanoid rather than a dot, becoming a man rather than a silhouette, becoming a threat rather than an annoyance. A man in a fluttering green coat, an incongruous smile scarring his face.

Some kind of force was being fired out through the palms of his hands, propelling him up into the sky. Aka Manto felt hot anger rise up from its skin as it saw those green sparks.

Aether.

“Heya, buddy,” the interloper grinned. “Couldn’t help but notice you were stuck all the way up here. I’ll help you down, yeah?”