The fighting had been hot and furious. Riley went through more than half of the Animus Gatherer Pack’s reserves in less than a minute, while Aidan’s plasma orbs had shrunk after colliding with dozens of Chaos dwellers.

The wounded were being carted away, mostly by the deckhands and crew. The shipboard marines had their hands full with pushing back against the Chaos dwellers. Fighting against Chaos dwellers within a plane’s Chaos Channel was vastly different from fighting them on the surface or on a Tideland. For one thing, Rumiga’s weakening effect was curtailed by the prodigious amount of ambient Chaos flowing in from the Sea. For another, the dwellers weren’t fighting against negative pressure. Their Chaos Wells were at equilibrium with the area’s ambient Chaos, which was currently spiked several times above normal.

However, if they got too far away from the Channel, the ambient Chaos lowers back to planar norms, and at that point, the negative pressure would cause their energy reserves to flush out unless they were spending more of it to protect themselves.

Riley determined the range of this flux to be around fifty or so paces from the Channel, and unfortunately, most of the survivors of the crash were in that region. It was a good thing his maximum effective range was a hundred paces… although given the cavern he was in, that didn’t really matter. In fact, the cavern was barely larger than the flux region, and they needed to run out into the tunnels.

Whoosh!

His plasma bolt was the same colour as his Animus glow, purple, and it slammed into a Chaos dweller, melting through its Protective Field and its reaching arm. It roared in pain and anger as it reeled back, hence saving the pair of deckhands from getting mauled.

More of them poured out of the Chaos Channel, but he only had enough reserves to attack the ones closest to their people. He saw a squad of them going for the Sullen Striker, where his aunt was working to overload the Animus Engines.

“How much longer?” he yelled at her.

Layla waved a hand with all five fingers spread, which either meant five minutes or that she didn’t know and he’d better hold the line as long as he could. He took it as the latter and gritted his teeth. The Channel was a natural bottleneck, but the pressure of incoming dwellers was more than enough to overwhelm them if given the chance.

There had been fifty marines within the Sullen Striker, and forty-eight of them were Journeyman level. They’d formed up now, with an even mix of Plasma Casters and Lancet-shield uses. The Willow Reaper’s shipboard marines transferred over to the other two ships, but only three-fourths of them made it. The Shattering Spear’s marines were similarly decimated, though most of the casualties were wounded, not dead.

Bolts of superheated plasma rained on the incoming Chaos dwellers, while the shieldbearers held fast. A squid ship managed to squeeze into the passage, dying almost immediately from deprivation, but not without disgorging hundreds of swarmlings and Wanderers. The Wyldlings immediately rushed the line, with some diverting towards the ship, fulfilling their inborn purpose of distracting and wearying defenders.

This was where Aidan shone.

His plasma balls flew towards the incoming tide and burst, spreading death and destruction to all of the swarmlings and Wanderers within a ten-pace radius. The concentration of plasma and Animus wouldn’t have hurt a Chaos Lord, but for the Wyldlings, it was more than enough to melt them. Aidan even managed to recover at least half of what he spent, with the leftover plasma reforming next to his gauntlets.

It was touch and go for several minutes. Another squid ship crashed into the channel and released more swarm fodder. The Chaos Lords held back, shooting bolts of ever-changing energy at the marines, but were blocked by hastily erected Fields. A few bolts cut through and knocked down a couple of marines, but they were dragged away to be attended to by the healers.

Then came the moment. Aunt Layla and her assistants came charging out of the Sullen Striker’s hull, with the captain in tow.

“Pull back!” she yelled, and Riley didn’t have to be told twice.

“Retreat by ranks!” Aidan commanded the marines and a staggered retreat commenced. They were almost at the edge of the flux area when the Animus Engine overloaded. A pulse of light penetrated the hull, followed by a visible shockwave.

Riley’s Protective Field popped like a soap bubble and he was thrown back. The Animus Gatherer Pack cushioned his landing but gave out a sickening crunch. Then, sparks of lightning danced along the cables, followed by the stench of burnt components, and acrid smoke.

Groaning in pain, he barely managed to shuck the backpack portion and detach the Plasma Caster. Parts of the pack were throwing off sparks while dark smoke rose from bits of it. There were no visible flames, but he tossed some dirt on it anyway, in an attempt to smother whatever was making the fire.

He glanced around and found himself partway down the tunnel. His marines and the crew members of the three Chaos ships were strewn about, and then…

Krrrrr!

Boom!

Sand, pebbles, loose stones, and boulders slammed down from the cavern’s ceiling.

“Run!” he yelled, and it took precious time for people to shake away the shock and react. But thankfully, the damage by the exploding Animus Engine seemed to have been confined in the chamber.

Riley grabbed the marine next to him and dragged the woman to her feet.

“Go!”

He nudged her deeper into the tunnel. The ceiling was raining dust and stones, it might not take much longer before it collapsed. He did the same for everyone near him until he found his little aunt, flat on her back and conked out.

Grumbling to himself, he tossed her over his shoulder, as well as one of her assistant Runeers, and ran. His brother was carrying a couple of people too.

They ran down the tunnel until it stopped shaking. Only then were they able to take stock. Nearly a third of the crew and marines of the three assault cruisers hadn’t made it, not to mention the Willow Reaper’s captain and officers. As for the Shattering Spear, he didn’t know if the officers were among the survivors. Captain Brogin of the Sullen Striker was looking dazed, and without the ship, he was no longer in command.

What a mess this turned out to be. Riley sighed. But at least they were in the plane, and in position to break the siege. Now, which way to the surface?

____________

It turned out that the underground passages weren’t completely pitch dark. Yuriko found out when Orrin commented on the fact that her Anima light drowned out the soft bioluminescent bugs and moss.

“It’s really quite pretty,” the blonde boy said while tucking overly long strands of hair behind his ear.

Like Braden, Orrin’s hair was getting a bit on the long side and neither of them had the chance to get to a haberdashery. It was also too short to tie with a ribbon, though perhaps a headscarf would do. As she noted before, neither of the twins had much facial hair, unlike Heron, who, if not for his habitual shaving, would have had a beard by now.

“If you say so,” Yuriko muttered.

Orrin arched an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to see it?”

“I would, actually, but…” Yuriko sighed and nodded towards the rest of the caravan.

After finally finding the dead end, they’d moved back to a cavern and set up camp. Runescript campfires took care of both light and cooking heat, even though the place was actually at a comfortable temperature. It was the middle of the Season of Earth, and on the surface, it could grow hot or cold depending on the weather. Not to the extremes during the Seasons of Water or Fire, but ranged between the two. Down here it wasn’t particularly hot or cold.

Well, it was warm enough that most of them eschewed a blanket in bed, but cool enough that they wouldn’t shed their outer clothing. For Yuriko, the temperature was comfortable either way, but that was more a matter of her enhanced physique than anything else.

Anyway, she retracted her Anima as close to her skin as possible, but couldn’t fully retract. An inch around her body was necessary to keep her outer Animus reserves as well as her contingent Adamant Guardian Seals. She could make the brightness as low as possible, but she still shed a little bit of golden light no matter what she did.

And of course, that little bit of light was more than enough to drown out whatever luminescence there was in the cavern.

“I see,” Orrin said morosely. “I’m sorry, I’m sure you would have enjoyed looking.”

“Probably,” Yuriko agreed.

“What’re you talking about?” Heron came up next to them, carrying a couple of bowls of ration bar stew. He gave one to her and she accepted gracefully.

“The light she couldn’t see,” Orrin said.

“Eh?”

The smaller boy gestured towards the walls and the pillars. “If we had no light, we would have still been able to see. I wandered off away from the campfires and I saw it.” Orrin nodded to her, “Yuriko always gives out some light, so…”

“Ah. I, uh,” Heron fidgeted. “If I had my paints I could have made a painting. A pity I didn’t bring any.”

“It’s quite alright, Heron. I appreciate the offer.”

“No, no, I will commit it to memory and I’ll paint a scene for you when we return to Faron’s Crossing.”

Yuriko smiled happily, recalling the small painting he’d given her before. “Thank you, I look forward to it.”

Heron grinned and rubbed his nose with a finger, then spooned some stew. His grimace was enough to tell both of them that the food wasn’t any better than usual. “So, what’s the plan?”

Yuriko shrugged. “We explore the other passages for a way, and we follow the electrum thorns, I guess.”

“Have you seen any?”

“No. But Fri’Avgi will tell me how close we are to Synkrasia, and where its general direction is.”

“So if worse comes to worst, we can simply orient ourselves there and take whichever path we can?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, Yuri, Orrin. Heron.” Braden came up to their little gathering, carrying a couple of bowls for himself and his brother.

“Thanks!” Orrin said as he took the bowl and spoon. He grimaced too when he took a bite. “Reminds me of our time in Shillogu Woods.”

Yuriko chuckled. “It does, doesn’t it? It feels so long ago.”

“Yeah. All we need are Krystal and Mikel, and the old first group will be back together.”

“Hey, I wasn’t part of that,” Braden complained. “You got lucky!”

“Hie hie, I did.” Orrin grinned. “But if you think about what dangers we had to overcome, not really. At least your group was safe. Mostly.”

“Yeah, until we had to go and look for you little lost lambs.”

“Then you got gutted by the Seeker of Delights,” Yuriko teased. It didn’t seem as dire now, but back then, the sight of the boy going down had been infuriating.

“Yeah. Thanks to Miss Jacqueline, I survived.” Braden grunted. “And our twin bond, of course.”

“Yeah, that,” Orrin grunted. “I felt as if something hit the back of my head afterwards.”

Yuriko just smiled at the ribbing. This had turned into an impromptu nostalgia meet, but really, it had been less than three years since then. A lifetime ago.

Gwendith and Asami soon joined the four of them, and the talk turned towards Academy life. Heron, Asami, and Gwendith had been in Agaza, while she and Orrin were enrolled in Sharom, albeit in different classes. Braden had been alone in Aneurin, and he said that most of the time, he’d be hip deep in paperwork.

“We’ve had a lot of underground duties, haven't we?” Heron reminisced, while Asami nodded. Gwendith just shrugged. “This feels as if we’ve gone back in time. Heh.”

After a while, Desire walked up to the group and sat down beside Yuriko. She stared imperiously at the boys, then began to sing softly. It was a familiar tune, one that Yuriko soon realised had been one of the ditties that Ashley Gin once sang in school. Heron recognised it too, and he frowned at the Chaos Lord, but ultimately didn’t say anything.

Yuriko joined the simple melody after the first stanza, and after a moment, the others pitched in. They sang and chatted until it was time to sleep, and that little bit helped ease the frustrations of being blocked from their path. Tomorrow, Yuriko would lead her people to Synkrasia, no matter what obstacles they faced.