The desert landscape stretched as far as the eye could see, but its austere stillness was disturbed by an entourage of metal beings, their loud rumblings piercing the silence of the morning.

First was Ripley and his companions, riding a large Behemoth that resembled a wagon. Following them were smaller Behemoths that floated in mid-air, and behind them, a hulking great knight fashioned out of steel, crouching down yet floating, fire coming out of its back. Despite this, the group of Ripley never faltered, and they continued to propel themselves forward, with nothing to block them.

The knight was currently conversing to the mercenary Lou, who was standing on top of the wagon.

"How's your dad, Marcus?" he casually asked the Behemoth. "Is he still in office, I'd presume?"

"I am not here to talk about personal matters, Garramond!" it answered in a booming voice. It sounded like a young man's voice, but altered in some way. It spoke with an imposing air, as if it was of royal descent. "I've taken it upon myself to impose judgment on you, and I will not let this chance slip by. Not without spilling your blood on the battlefield."

"Oh, come on, Marcus! Don't say it like that! Just tell me you want to settle the score! And wouldn't it be better for the Kingdom if you catch me alive? After all, I'm a wanted man."

As the two were engaged in a somewhat casual yet imposing talk, the passengers of the wagon Behemoth stirred.

"You know him?" Marlowe asked Silt, whose face appeared in the screen artifact.

"I've had a close brush with him once, but the knight knows more about him. All I know is that he's one of the Blue Army's generals that can pilot a Behemoth like that. He's no technician, but his skills in maneuvering surpass mine. His Behemoth is the real threat. The Guardian-class can be armed with whatever weapon his driver chooses, and there's no telling what he has in store for us."

"You mean Marcus is not the Behemoth itself?"

"Of course not!" Ripley chimed in. "Behemoths and their pilots are separate beings, but they need each other to function, quite unlike the ancient ones that attacked the Goddess. It's because of the mana that paralyzed them. But if that's the case, why do we need mana to drive this thing?"

"Ask the technicians," Silt said. "They more about that sort of thing than I do. Luckily, your father is one, and we might be able to get to him."

"Yeah, but after we get away from the Blue Army," said Marlowe. "What should we do?"

"See that trapdoor below you? There's a handful of flasks in there. Use those. Knight, get down from there. I'm opening the back."

After she said that, a whirring sound can be heard. The walls of the Behemoth began to furl towards the front, and Lou hopped down from the top of the vehicle whose roof started to shrink.

"What's up, boss, little dude?" he greeted the two boys. He held his glowing sword in hand and prepared to shoot a few bolts of his own. "Looks like Marcus is not putting up without a fight. Are you ready?"

Marlowe had scooped up as many flasks as he could carry, stuffing some of those in his baggy overalls. Ripley prepared his revolver, but Silt stopped him.

"Don't use your gun, smithson. No matter what. They might change their target from the knight to you."

"But why?!" he asked. "This has something to do with Lou's background, isn't it?"

"How perceptive of you," the mercenary grinned. "But now's not the time to explain."

"Oho, what's this?" boomed Marcus. "It seems you have enlisted the help of a few minors. But that wouldn't matter. After this sideshow, I'll travel up the north for repairs andsit in leisure while your battered self gets dragged along the back of my Guardian. As for your friends, who knows? Maybe I'll send them up north to help with the manual labor. Or have them become my loyal squires. It's the least I could do to save these young ones."

"Way to spoil your plans, General!" Lou shouted. "But thanks anyway! Shall we begin?"

"Umm," Marlowe looked back towards the screen. "How exactly do I use these bottles?"

"Shake and throw," Silt replied briefly. "Now I have to focus on driving." And Silt's face disappeared.

The floating Behemoths began maneuvering alongside Ripley's group and attempted to ram the wagon they're riding, but as they got close, Marlowe threw a flask at one of them, and as it hit the metal body, flames burst out and enveloped the Behemoth. However, that did little to stop it. Desperate, Ripley tried casting some spell, any spell, but Lou had already finished the job of firing a missile at the enemy.

Ripley counted how many of these metal demons were chasing them. Four of the smaller ones were close by their tail, and one of them had been destroyed by the mercenary. Three larger Behemoths that looked similar to theirs were still some distance behind them, and further on was Marcus.

The young smith studied the steel knight, and he saw that it was a marvel of design. But he didn't get his chance to examine its finer features as Silt veered off and rammed the Blue Army Behemoth to their left. He was shaken, but some sense was brought back to him. He looked back towards the closest enemy he could find, and stretched out his hand.

A few hours before, Ripley had suffered an intense training regimen from Lou. He had taught him two necessary things.

One: Incantations are bad. They might help with the casting process, but they were simply keywords that helped the caster think of the spell vividly. As such, they caused the spell to stagnate, meaning that it can only be activated by mentioning those exact keywords, which takes up time.

Two: Magic was all about thought. Since a caster's mana is attuned to his body, he can do whatever with it. All he has to do is make a clear connection with it. Incantations dull this connection, as Lou had put it.

Putting what he had learned together, the young smith cleared his thoughts and concentrated on a spell he had already known how to cast.

A disk of mana quickly formed on his outstretched hand, and quickly folded itself into various shapes until it settled on an aerodynamic shape. With that done, he threw it at the Blue Army soldier driving the Behemoth, and it shattered, sending the driver out of his seat and tumbling in the sand. As for his vehicle, it careened out of control and crashed into one of the larger ones, and it exploded in a huge flaming mess.

"Whoa!" Marlowe shouted in awe. "How did you do that?! I wish I could do that!"

This minor deed was enough to warrant praise in a desert town which hasn't seen magic, but in a battlefield, it's a declaration to be targeted. And the Blue Army was quick to take the message.

From out back, Blue Army soldiers emerged from the larger Behemoths. They formed barriers in mid-air and quickly hopped on one as it formed, creating another one in front of them as they went. Marlowe lobbed more flasks towards the reinforcements, but the soldiers blocked his volleys with another barrier. Ripley fired more mana missiles at them, this time smaller and faster, and managed to hit some of them as they were in the middle of their jump. But Lou, the mercenary, did something entirely different.

He dove right in front of the skirmish, clashing with the soldiers head-on.

He jumped high and formed his own barrier platform to stand on, but unlike the soldiers' barriers which were left behind and disappeared after they've found their use, this barrier moved relative to the speed of the chase, so to a stationary observer, it looked like the barrier was zooming along with the Behemoths. When a soldier lunged towards the mercenary, he simply blocked his descent with a blocking barrier, and he fell off.

The mercenary flew with his personal barrier below his feet, and dashed forward to attack the soldiers. Noticing this, they switched from barriers to projectiles and fired mana missiles at him, and he answered back with a crescent wave of mana that swept the ranks, destroying one small Behemoth in the process.

Ripley was getting tired from casting mana missiles at enemies, and beside him, Marlowe was running out of flasks to throw. All in all, they managed to destroy six out of eight Behemoths, but that didn't mean they were winning the battle.

From across the horizon, another wave of Behemoths was approaching, consisting of smaller ones with floating disks for wheels. There were also Blue Army soldiers ready to fire a barrage of blue bolts towards them. And Marcus was getting closer.

Silt made a huge right turn to avoid ramming the incoming parade and its volley, which swept the two youths off-balance and knocking them on the metal floor. The Behemoth caught a few shots, mostly from the front, but it escaped and was still in one piece.

The young smith looked at the second wave of soldiers clambering atop their vehicles to resume the chase, but were quickly shot down by a crescent wave, disappearing in a cloud of desert sand. The mercenary had returned from his assault, and he hopped back down into the mangled Behemoth where Ripley and Marlowe were, still lying down.

"So are we winning yet?" he asked and offered a hand to the two, who accepted it as they stood up.

Silt's face returned from the screen. "We still have a general and his Behemoth behind us. Not a good sign!"

"I'm running out of stuff to throw!" Marlowe complained. "Do you still have more of those flasks? Maybe in another secret compartment?"

The General was beginning to loom over them, its crouched form sliding through the hot sand. Marcus' voice can be heard rambling about his task of 'ridding the pest Garramond', as he had put it, but the group let it fall behind deaf ears.

Then, as if trying to get their attention, its shoulders lit up, and in the next instant, a pair of glowing orbs were headed for the metal wagon. Specifically, they were aimed at the mercenary, who deftly tried to dodge and block the attack, but it proved formidable. The moment the large projectiles hit his barrier, the force of the impact was enough to push everyone inside. Fortunately, it gave Silt a huge speed boost.

"Hey, Silt! I can't block his shots! They're too strong!" he shouted towards the front of their Behemoth. "We're toast!"

On the screen artifact, Silt pondered for a few seconds until she sighed and contorted her face in exasperation. And then, the screen shut itself off.

The front door of the Behemoth opened, and Silt emerged, still wearing her chainmail cloak. Its various trinkets glittered under the growing blaze of the sun. She stepped forward, opened a hidden door under the floor, and took out a large metal tube, which she placed beside the onlookers.

"I didn't want to use this," she said, "but we're in a bind."

"Wait," Ripley thought out loud. "If she's here, then… who's driving this thing?"

Behemoths need drivers and pilots to function, he had mentioned. Silt being in front of them taking out some metal junk spelled disaster for the young smith. He saw how the enemy Behemoths spun out of control when their drivers were taken out. Are they going to suffer the same fate?

He hurried to the front of the Behemoth to commandeer it. A wheel sat in front of a seat Ripley surmised to be the driver's seat. Below it was a set of pedals, and on one of the pedals was a stone slab.

"Don't touch anything, smithson!" Silt shouted sternly. "I left it that way on purpose!"

Ripley looked back, and Silt was arming herself. She knelt with one knee, metal tube slung across her shoulder, with a fruit-like case stuck at its tip. And it was aimed towards Marcus.

In the next second, fire and smoke spewed towards Ripley, filling the front cabin. An explosion could be heard towards the back.

"Don't just stand there! Give me another round! Knight, cast your most powerful spell!" she ordered.

"Sorry, Silt, but I'm all out of juice," reported the mercenary. "I can't cast anything powerful until we rest."

"Give it up, Garramond," Marcus' voice threatened. "There's no way you can dent this Guardian of mine. Anything you throw at me will simply be repelled by my armor!"

"How about this?!" Silt barked as she fired another round, and this time, it hit the Behemoth squarely in the face, but it was still on the chase.

"Thanks for shushing him! He was getting annoying and-" Lou cheered, but another pair from Marcus blocked out his chance to sneak in another word.

The current battle was like a game of catch. Silt would fire a flaming fruit towards Marcus and his Guardian, who would then reply with a double mana missile large enough to destroy their wagon. If not for Lou who diverted and absorbed some of the missiles that came their way, their journey to the mountains would've stopped then and there.

Every once in a while, the two sides would take a breather before going on their next assault. At that time, Lou would make gashes on the floor and Silt would retreat back to the driver's seat to adjust the levers, and then return to the fight with a fresh set of metal fruits. And then, it happened.

The glow on Lou's sword intensified, as well as the gashes on the floor, which formed a pattern as the mana droplets coursed their way through. He held Silt's shoulder and pointed the glowing sword towards the Guardian, who was still recovering the mana it lost when it fired its volleys.

"Ripley! Hold on to me and concentrate! You'll know what to do!" and the young smith grabbed Lou's back and thought hard.

Meanwhile, Marlowe was simply staring at them weirdly. "Wait, what about me?!"

"Go to the front and you'll find a red lever!" Silt answered without looking back. "On my signal, pull it hard! Ready?!"

A point of light formed at the tip of Lou's sword, growing by the second. Silt's fruit-like round was also glowing with intense light. Ripley concentrated on this light point, and he closed his eyes shut so that he could focus on the spell. His feet flooded with blue light as the pattern below him started to emit sparks.

Can you hear me, Ripley? A voice called from inside his head. It was Lou's.

He opened his eyes, and found himself in a different world. Blue streaks traveled backwards, and the forms of Lou and Silt were enveloped in a blue haze. Marcus' Guardian appeared as a dark shade save for a single humanoid form resting at its core. The pattern below him swirled, and time seemed to flow in a slower pace.

The young smith had seen this same scene yesterday, while they were hunting for Silt.

Don't worry, reassured the voice. It's all in your head. Your mana is attuned to mine and is now coursing through that point over there. When Silt says the go signal, you let go and jump.

He wanted to ask a few questions, but he focused on the Behemoth right in front of him.

The point of light quivered, as if ready to release its pent-up energy. Ripley saw this as some sort of signal, but he kept for Silt's word.

Silt fired her last round of explosive, and it sped right to the Guardian's head, exploding in an intense blue flame as it hit. When she saw the Behemoth still moving, she nudged the mercenary.

Okay, boss. We can let loose now. Lou said through his mind, and Ripley consented.

In the next instant, light enveloped Ripley's vision. It wasn't a blinding light, but it brought so much power he could feel it through his skin. It only lasted for a few seconds, but it felt like minutes under his slowed perception of time.

When the light cleared, the Guardian was charred beyond recognition. One of its arms was consumed by the light, leaving a large gaping hole at its side. Ripley could see sparks fly through the burned hole. And then, after something shot upwards, the Guardian-class Behemoth exploded in a ball of flame.

"We actually did it!" Ripley couldn't believe it. "We destroyed a Guardian-class Behemoth!"

"You did what?!" Marlowe craned his head. "Does that mean we killed the pilot or driver or whatever he was?"

"Sadly, no. But it's okay now. You can let go of that lever," said Silt as she returned to the driver's seat.

"Anyway, what was that lever for?"

"A contingency plan. If ever the knight failed, that lever will activate the emergency override, and this Behemoth will crash with General Marcus', which would've destroyed it."

"What?!" Marlowe shrieked. "But that would mean I'd lose all the stuff in here! And our ride!"

"Well, let's put all that behind us, shall we?" Lou tilted his head back. "What matters is that we're still in one piece."

And the group of four, with their battered metal wagon, pressed onwards in their journey to the northern lands, where Earl Nightjar might be waiting.