Initially lined up with a setting sun for a better first impression, the monstrosity’s red eye was slowly getting brighter. Or maybe deeper and darker… Well, what’s important is that it was more distinctive on the dark blue sky with every second. Hundreds of (relatively) thin legs seem to materialise out of thin air, which rippled with their every step. It could have been some camouflage effect, or some weird phasing - Mary couldn’t tell.

The cyclops spider wasn’t nearly as tall as the giant she saw on her first day here - if the gate wasn’t open right now, the walls would obscure almost half of its metallic body. Which was probably a good thing since it looked impressive enough as it was.

The leader of the unfortunate party that was supposed to lead the efforts at taking the monstrosity down was already on his feet and swinging his sword high in the air. It was probably meant to signal them to do the same. At least, Mary hoped that’s what it was meant to do since that’s what everyone was doing. Paolo and the creepy guy quickly appeared beside him - for some reason, the pinpricks of light rapidly blinked in and out of existence around the boy. It was mesmerising but weird anyway.

They weren’t walking in any particular formation - it would probably require training that most of the students never went through. It looked more like someone spilt a bunch of ants on the ground and used their positions as a pattern - with occasional fly thrown in for drones like Mossie flying above her shoulder. Some students tried to bring some sort of order to their ‘legion’, but Mary was simply sweating heavily in her personal metal can, and not just from the heat. What were they supposed to do against the monstrosity looming over the horizon?

Well, it turned out she personally didn’t need to do anything - the lead enemy was the commanding party’s job. Once the thing closed in on them, she noticed a glimmering puddle around its many ‘feet’. On further inspection, it turned out to be another camouflage field or space distortion effect. Soon enough, Mary could discern particular units among the blur - the thing had brought an army with it.

“So, it begins,” Hans muttered mere seconds before the opposing army started a charge at them.

Mary waited tensely for the soldiers to approach them. The closer they got, the more details she could make out - they looked mostly humanlike, only with steel or some other metal for the skin. When she saw their faces - ok, at first, she got a bit creeped out because they all looked very detailed, yet exactly the same. Identical angry scowl repeated on hundreds of faces, sending shivers down her spine… but the second thing Mary did, was to point her hand in their general direction and shout “kcufuoy!” along with dozens of other students.

The swarm of fireballs struck the enemy forces, badly damaging some and causing others immediately behind them to slip on the molten steel. Unfortunately, the salvo was noticed by the behemoth that lingered further away - it blared a deafening sound that was extremely hard to describe. Best Mary could compare it to was a tortured satyr forced to blow into an enlarged replica of his own broken horn, cast from cold iron and hardened in the deepest point of Flegeton for millennia. Then said sound would have to be recorded and blasted on full volume from every column that every annoying neighbour with no regard for others within a hundred miles used at parties at 3am every other Thursday.

Anyway, it caused the heroes to fall on their backs, giving them a perfect view to see the swarm of rockets falling on them from above. Each of them was relatively small on its own, maybe twice Mary’s height, but their numbers made it impossible to shoot them down in mid-air.

Mary was already preparing to meet her Creator when the swarm touched down the earth all around them. However, instead of exploding, they lodged themselves firmly in the earth, occasionally squishing an unfortunate hero like a bug. A humming sound started to build up and resonating with Mary’s bones.

“Get down,” Margaret yelled and raised her hands in an almost praying gesture. “Tegffo!”

The world around them suddenly took a shade of pink. Mary blinked a few times before understanding - Margaret had to have cast some shield dome around them.

The humming kept building up, and the rocket shells started spinning before all of them exploded at once, spraying jagged metal spikes and razors all around them. The web of cracks lightened up Margaret’s shield dome whenever any of the projectiles connected with it, and by the end, it was almost blinding - but it held.

After the impacts stopped for a few seconds, the girl had to lower the shield - and as soon as she did, she threw herself backwards, narrowly avoiding a wild axe swing from one of the metallic soldiers.

“Margaret!” Hans shouted and jumped in between her and the attacker, cutting the enemy down with a speed that surely had to be an effect of some enchantment.

“Are you okay?” Mary asked, letting Hans take care of the immediate threats.

“Yeah,” Margaret winced, but let herself be helped up to her feet. “That spell is really taxing.”

All around them, chaos reigned. Some heroes took direct hits from the bombardment, and others fought almost individually, with each party having their own fighting style. Fireballs, thunderbolts and explosions made it almost impossible for Mary to judge what was actually happening. Still, she and her own party quickly managed to fall into a rhythm of battle - Hans took out any enemy that managed to get too close, Mary melted those that were coming for them at prescribed fireball distance, and Margaret jumped between ranged and melee, with occasional force shields thrown in between.

It looked like their situation was almost under control, but Margaret’s shields seemed to grow thinner, smaller, and appeared a bit later with each cast. Mary noticed that the enemies seemed to specifically target the girl’s armoured parts while she already got glancing hits all over herself. She couldn’t tell if their attackers were sexist and gross or courteous with their aim.

But something was wrong. Mary felt that there was something she forgot, something important, and it really wasn’t a good time to forget important things. Was it something learned at the academy? No, that’s not right, she thought while incinerating another group of androids trying to flank them. It was something she heard earlier, something…

And then it struck her. Battle tactics - Bromman told her that the key to survival was positioning, and in the event of a large monster with an army, she was supposed to be as far away from the army’s centre as possible - not in the middle like she was right now.

“Margaret!” she shouted over the clanking and explosions ringing all over the place. “We need to get away from here!”

“What?” the girl asked, tearing her eyes away from Hans, who dashed forward to dispatch a group of spearmen… well, speardroids. The act meant that when the looming monstrosity’s eye flared red, she was caught off guard.

Mary’s eyes widened behind her faceplate as she saw the laser starting to disintegrate heroes on their right flank, and moving through them like a lightsaber through butter towards the centre of their army. The centre, where they currently fought.

She ran forward, feeling her limbs tremble from the effort she put them through, but everything moved as if in slow motion. Margaret noticed that something was wrong and turned around to face the hateful eye. She threw her hands up, and a shield started to form - but by now, it only covered a couple yards. Margaret barely managed to stumble into the safe zone, but Hans - Hans was still out, focused on the ground troops.

“No!” Margaret yelled as the beam swept over them, only straining her shield, but devastating anything around them.

She immediately broke into a run, and while still running, she cut her hand open with a dagger. She dove into the pile of ash, and her silvery-white hair flowed around as she placed a bleeding hand over the ashes when Hans fell.

Mary recognised the lifeleak spell, the sacrificial ritual to keep anyone alive. Could it work? Wasn’t it too late already? She ran towards the kneeling girl when a humming noise caught her attention. She looked behind, and noticed one of the rockets lodged into the ground.

Mary turned to Margaret and saw that the girl saw it as well - but she didn’t break the spell. Tears streaked from her eyes, filled with a mixture of determination and resignation. As the missile thing exploded, Mary felt a thousand little impacts hurling her forward towards the pair.

Her ears were ringing, and she couldn’t hear herself groan as every bone in her body filed an official complaint about their treatment, but she forced herself to rise up. She was alive, or so she hoped at least. She rose her head, and…

Margaret lay before her, pierced by the shrapnels. She bled from arms, legs, face… a yard-long spike pierced her stomach, just above where the lower part of her armours would have protected her from harm.

But she was still conscious, and a thin line of crimson and green mist still poured from the cut on her hand to the pile of ash next to her. Her eyes met Mary’s, and although no voice escaped her lips, Mary guessed what she was trying to say.

“Save him, save him, save him….”

Mary stood frozen before her dying friends, unable to move a muscle. After only a few seconds, Margaret’s eyes closed, and the healing mist started to thin. Mossie, which somehow survived the whole thing, chose this time to collide with her, waking her up from her trance.

No, no, no…

“NO!” Mary yelled and ripped off the gloves of her armour. It couldn’t end this way, not like this. She pulled out a dagger Margaret gave her a few days ago and noticed that only the handle survived the treatment it received. She frantically looked around and found Hans’ jagged sword protruding from the earth, impervious to the destruction around.

She swiped both her hands over the edge, letting blood flow from her palms. A warning not to cut too deeply flashed through her mind, but she had no time to be careful. She only had one chance.

Placing each hand above one of her friends remains, she started to say the incantation. It wasn’t the version she practised earlier, but she couldn’t let go of either of them. Not like this.

“One decade of my life, for one hour of theirs. One decade of my life, for one hour of theirs. One decade…” she intoned in that strange pattern, her voice going up and down with every word. She felt the energy in her, the very essence of her life flow out of her, her heart slowing down just a bit with every beat, but instead of trying to hold on to her life, she pushed it out further. She had to.

“One decade of my life, for one hour of theirs. One decade…”

The spell was meant to hold for seconds, maybe minutes until the help arrived. Mary felt a twinge of fear, but the guilt and desperation quickly overwhelmed the intruder. A dark hand clutched on her heart, and she noticed that everything around her was covered in shadows. Her shadows, each ten feet tall and slashing with clawlike hands at any approaching foes.

Above her head, she saw a shining circle of light, glimmering in different shades of white, at glimmering with touches of colours - green, blue, orange… She didn’t understand what was happening, but the next time the laser tore through the ground around her, the white shield held it back.

She kept chanting the spell, pouring her life into her friends’ remains, hopefully keeping them alive. She wouldn’t know if it worked, not until help arrived. Her throat grew sore, and the muscles of her neck rebelled, lowering her head against her will. Help would come, someone had to have seen what was happening, someone would come and save them...

Soon, she lost track of time.