The group stayed overnight at one of Linde's scientists' houses. A sizable home for many researchers to take refuge until the war ended, though most left Imperia's borders and traveled north to Sapporo. The lands inbetween Mariellir and Imperia were thankfully untouched, but rumors passed around that the TGA was planning a secret assault from the north, rumors unconfirmed by either side of the war. The flow of what information got in and what got out lessened over time. Less and less people knew what was occurring, and what the purpose of the war was. Amelia guessed it was the doing of Wednesday Battalion, if they were real.

The dawn of the early morning sky gleamed through the dining room windows, dawning on Amelia seated at the table holding a cup of warm coffee to keep herself warm. Staring down at the deep brown drink, her reflection partially visible, and an upset gaze. She tried contacting Mark with her radio but only static rung on the other end.

"Hey Captain." Taking Amelia out of her sorrow was Sharrion followed by an old scientist with a light bread and neatly combed hair. A researcher overlooking the gene theory inflicted on the test subjects. Sharrion leaned her arm on the table "You're up early. I presume you're ready to go? Isaac is willing to watch over the twins for us."

Isaac, the scientist, nodded firmly "It's the least I could do for Mrs. Lhant. I wish I could've done more to prevent Warui from experimenting with things humans can't understand."

"It's not your fault Isaac." Amelia tightened her grasp on her cup "Maybe… maybe it was a mistake for humanity to have knowledge. All of our problems have been the result of our own hubris. The same mistakes happen time and time again."

Sharrion was quick to interrupt, almost slamming her hands down on the table making ripples in the cup of coffee "Don't speak nonsense now, we're more than capable of using what was given to us to push towards the future. It's just that some people want to meet their own ends." She raised her hands off the table to cross her arms "Besides, you said yourself; Warui had strong convictions."

"Mm…" Amelia's thoughts were too jumbled up to get a solid response out. Still torn by war, she didn't know what to believe but her goal stayed the same. Her path to it wavering time and time again.

Isaac pressed his hand on Sharrion's shoulder "Ms. Rosenberd, we are all at fault. But though we have made mistakes in the past, what matters now is how we correct it in the present, for the future."

Sharrion closed her eyes letting out a deep breath. "Yeah. I don't like seeing Captain upset like this. We need to be strong in our resolve if we want our goal to be reality, now moreso than ever. People are counting on someone to stop this battle."

"Thank you Sharrion." Amelia smiled "I may get moody but I promise I won't give up. Mark would leave me if I did."

Isaac asked a curious question. "How do you intend to get back into the city? I hear they're getting extremely strict with who gets in and who gets out."

Sharrion planned for them to go through the magic quartz mines to get into the inner mountain city. From there, they could contact Mark's group and rendezvous nearby. A simple plan but the downside was that they were lacking in everything. Supplies, equipment, and so on. Isaac scratched his chin, a smaller smirk growing on the corner of his lips. He told them to wait briefly as he left the room to retrieve something to give them.

He returned with two guns in hand. A long machine gun of the ak variant, an rpk 74. And in the other hand a semi auto shotgun, benelli m4. Both weapons, clean and pristine out of the box. Sharrion squealed with sparkles in her eyes "Is this for us?!"

"Gunzard sent me these without telling me what I needed them for. I have doubts that the TGA will attack Donbern, and no one in the city knows how to handle a gun like you Ms. Rosenberd." Explained Isaac.

Sharrion raised her arms cheering, "Gunzard came through!"

Gunzard always had a way of getting weaponry. He never told Amelia where he got his guns from, only teaching her the technique of replicating complex weaponry. She owed him a lot for helping them and the church get to where it is now. She felt nothing she did could repay his gratitude.

Isaac gave the drooling maid his gifts. "Lambda and Lan will be safe with me. I'll make sure they aren't brought into the conflict."

"Thank you Isaac." Sharrion then turned to Amelia eagerly asking with her mouth salivating "Are you ready to go now Captain? I don't think I can wait any longerーI wanna see what these bad boys can do!"

Amelia giggled at her impatience and stood up. "I'll get Ibuki and then we'll head out. Hopefully we don't run into too much danger on our way."

They packed what they could and left the house with better determination than before.

》》》》》◆《《《《《

The path they took to get to the mines was a pure junkyard. If the first triad were the slums, this was where the waste of every triad combine went. Mountains of junk and trash and litter everywhere but the snow thankfully covered most of it, masking the stench. Being a junkyard, a place for the most desperate of individuals, not a single Imperia soldier or TGA spy was sighted. Amelia believed that the outward appearance of the path to the mines worked in its favor as the TGA thought nothing of this waste fill. Still, the group's guard was up for any trespassers.

"Never knew Imperia had so much unfiltered garbage." Sharrion saw piles of cars stacked almost reaching the height of a building, old and outdated machinery rusted by the winds. She thought about digging through it to find something they could use but none of it seemed to be functional.

"At least no one is here." Ibuki shrugged.

Unable to keep her interest contained, Sharrion strayed from the group to inspect something hidden underneath a pile of pipes. "Something catch your eye?" Amelia said.

"Looks like something big!" Sharrion looked at it from different angles then stretched her hand to move one of the pipes to see what was underneath. On contact, a bright light flashed blinding her temporarily. The ground rumbled, pipes and metal crashed onto the floor as a machine was awakened. Sharrion jumped back to get a full glimpse of one of Imperia's mechs left to rot..? Perhaps this was a trap to deter infiltrators like them.

A bipedal mech with a long unarmored body allowing steam to stream out of its pipes outlining the chassis. Two front lights illuminated the darkness and could blind a person if they stared too long. Amelia described it as a train with legs and hulking claw arms whenever she saw this machine; a mech ment for construction now turned genocider machine. Blaring from the mechs speakers, a familiar voice spoke to them. "Tsk tsk tsk! Looks like some TGA fellas fell into my American trap!"

"Wahhhhhh?!?" Amelia screamed.

"Wait a second, that voice sounds familiar!" Ibuki moved her hand to unholster her gun…. except she didn't have one. Only a dagger taken from Cynthia. Her face fell pale.

Sharrion lifted up her skirt a little and reached under to pull out her shotgun from seemingly nowhere. "Now this is something I can experiment on!"

The voice shouted once again "Sorry, I can't hear you begging for help over the sound of my death machine!"

Ibuki snapped her fingers, finally figuring out who the voice belonged to. "That's Faval Maxwell!"

"Prepared to be excavated!"

Amelia winced "He can't hear us and I'm guessing he doesn't recognize us either. We'll have to disable his mech somehow." They were going to be forced to defeat the mech if they wanted to get through. But it was a death sentence going against a mech under prepared. Using the battlefield to their advantage, they split and hid behind the piles of junk to avoid the mech shooting from the palm of It's tri claw.

"Quit trying to hide, I can see your heat signatures!" The mech opened its claws and stomped towards the car Sharrion hid behind. It swung its arm upward, flipping the car high into the air.

Sharrion quickly dashed out of the way before the mech's fist slammed down. She came to a skidding halt trying to shoot at what looked like weak spots at the joints but her bullets had little effect. The thick metals used to create this devastator seemed impenetrable. Steam bursted out the back pipes and the mech spun around with the swing of its fist that Sharrion slid under, shooting at Its joint while she did.

"Captain, we might need your magic!" Sharrion stepped away from the mech's range.

Amelia ran up beside the maid, tossing her an ak-47. "Here, use this instead."

Sharrion holstered her shotgun on her back in exchange for the magic weapon. "Will magic bullets work? Only one way to find out." She then began shooting at the mech.

The mech used its arm to shield itself. "Whoa whoa don't do that!"

"We got em!"

"Just kidding!" The mech reeled back its fist and moved forward with a slam of its fist down at the two girls. Sharrion was knocked away but Amelia flipped over the attack, landing on the mech's arm and running up along to the base of the machine. "Heyーever heard of personal space?!"

The mech moved around rapidly trying to shake Amelia off the top and nearly succeeded, had she not latched on to one of the pipes lining the machine. She pulled herself back up and crawled to the cockpit on the back, slamming it with her hand.

"Stop shooting! It's us Seraphim! It's Seraphimーcan't you hear me?!" She shouted at the top of her lungs.

"Sera? I don't know anyone with that name now get off!" The mech's stubby arms were too short to brush Amelia off its back. She began stomping as hard as she could screaming, "SERAPHIM! SERAPHIM! SERAPHIM!"

The mech's arms fell and a snap from the top hatch was heard. Amelia nearly tripped when the hatch flipped open and Faval popped his head out, throwing off his headphones. "You gotta lotta nerveー huh?"

Amelia kneeled down to look at him face to face, pouting much like a child. "You could've killed us back there!"

"Oh… you were saying Seraphim." Faval smacked his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose "Right right, well my apologies. I didn't expect you gals to be here. I thought you were staying in Donbern with your kids."

"I can't sit around If I want this war to end. People's lives are on the line." Amelia stood up "We're on our way back into the city through the mines ahead."

Faval groaned and came to a decision that would upset his superiors. "Ah, I guess I can help you out since no one would think about stepping into this junk dump. Those mines are rather unguarded this hour so hitch a ride. I'll take you as deep as I can."

Amelia turned and looked down at Sharrion and Ibuki, waving her arms in the air. "Hey! Faval says he'll help us get into the city. Hop on!"

Sharrion brushed a banana peel off her head "Jeez, Captain never ceases to surprise me."

Ibuki patted her back and apologized for her plan which needed Sharrion to be hit for Amelia to climb onto the mech. An awful plan but it was all she could think of in the heat of the moment.

Amelia joined Faval in the cockpit of the mech while Sharrion and Ibuki had to sit on the top and pray they didn't fall off the wobbly machine when it walked. Their travels would lead them into the southern magic quartz mine. This mine, unlike the others, was still under development and lacked many safety precautions. Darkness enveloped the cave and pitfalls littered the ground, however, the glowing quartz veins lit up the path for Faval allowing him to maneuver out of the darkness...

Cynthia opened a floor hatch and jumped down to land on a row of pipes. The spacious mines only lit by the quartz in the walls were left abandoned due to the war. Before, it was used to transport quartz from the deep mine to the surface. The desperate poor often worked here due to the dangerous equipment Imperia never thought to upgrade because of costs, and because of that many lost their lives being eaten up by machinery. It was a news story that spread across in the past and now a forgotten memory after the world's memories were split. But Cynthia didn't forget. She had her own motivation and planned to take advantage of the war to further her goals whatever they may be.

Her eyes sweeped the area and detected not a soul. Only deactivated machinery and rusted rails on the ground transporting piles of quartz shards to an elevator behind her. Her footsteps were the only sound she could hear walking along the pipes and taking one last scan of the area.

Wasting no more time, she attached a grappling hook to the end of the pipe and carefully slid down the rope to the rocky grounds and ran over to the entrance of a tunnel, kneeling down to place a hidden c4 behind the wooden beam. Once armed, the shadows around her grew darker…

“..!” Cynthia jumped to the side to avoid being slashed from behind by Kurai. Then a floating boulder was shot towards her. Once more Cynthia dodged to the left to avoid the projectile, skidding back and almost falling due to the rocky terrain.

“I knew there was something suspicious about you when I read your file. Your interactions with that Ibuki girl were strange too.” Kurai released her sword which didn't fall. Instead it levitated back up into an orbit, floating in Kurai's gravitational pull.

Cynthia brushed her bangs to the side in a nonchalant manner. “What are you talking about? Ibuki is just an annoying obstacle."

Kurai swiped her arm to the side and the planted c4 was ripped out of its hiding spot. Just like the sword it floated around Kurai. “Explain this then. I’ve been sensing these explosives around the mine.”

“Someone placed them there.” Cynthia shrugged “I thought to disarm them before they explode.”

Their attention was drawn to Amelia’s group arrival, entering from one of the nearby cave entrances with the mech stopping by a steep hill. When Ibuki’s eye clashed with Cynthia’s, she gasped. “Y-you!”

“What a coincidence.” Cynthia frowned, and pointed at her black haired adversary as proof they weren't cooperating.

Amelia popped open the top hatch and climbed out of the cockpit. "Kurai! Cynthia!" She ran across the mech and jumped off to greet the two cardinals, questioning why they were in the mines as well to which Kurai promptly responded, "It's none of your business. Why are you with the enemy?"

Amelia twiddle her fingers "Oh! Well you see…"

While she was giving her side of the story, Cynthia unsheathed the bomb detentor from her sleeve behind her back and without a second thought,

BOOM!

Multiple explosions around the mines went off making the entire cave shake. The c4 Kurai had floating around her nearly blew her head off in the process. She fell with her face bloodied and beyond repair under her long purple hair now stained crimson. Rocks and debris started to fall and Cynthia ran towards the wire she set to escape. Ibuki chased after her vowing to end her life for good this time. It was her opportunity to settle the score one and for all.

“Ibuki, where are you going?!" Sharrion's shout was interrupted by the sounds of more explosions deeper in the cave. She quickly jumped off the mech before Faval turned around to take the route back to escape.

“We're going to have to leave Ibuki and save Cardinal Kurai.” Amelia hoped her choice was the right one. She lifted Kurai only for the cardinal to push her away.

"Don't save me, save yourself!"

"B-but..!"

"Get out of my sight." Kurai's cold words struck Amelia, making her heart sink, failing to protect Ibuki and the Cardinal from danger. Did she even have a decision in the first place?

Sharrion snapped her out of her thoughts by grabbing her hand and making a run for one of the tunnels leading the way deeper into the cave. It seemed like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, the cave collapsing behind them, breathing on the back of their hairs. They just needed to go a bit further..!

And their vision collapsed into darkness.