The bridge around him was in chaos as everyone did their best to somehow salvage a situation steadily moving farther and farther outside their control. Meanwhile, Russell stared blankly at the main screen, watching his fleet be pulled out of the sky dozens at a time. No thoughts passed through his mind, simply a stunned silence that overwhelmed him.

When Experimental Vessel 73 had first arrived, Russell had been skeptical. He knew it was crewed exclusively by Ethermen, otherwise a human would have hailed them. In his experience, Ethermen made great shock troops and infiltrators, but not good commanders. They tended to be hyperfocused on one task and incapable of taking in the bigger picture. A shortcoming of their nature, he supposed.

He had to admit, he’d been more than impressed when they’d engaged the airborne shrouded. The technology on that ethership was a step and a half above anything he’d ever seen or heard of, and Russell was one of the few revolutionaries who got briefed on all the technological advancements they made. The fact that he hadn’t heard of these new Ethermen truly indicated how experimental they were, as the name implied.

Forcing the enemy out of the air was impressive enough. The fact that Vessel 73 seemed to have them on the run was even more so. That, above all else, was something Russell hadn’t expected. So far, the shrouded they were facing seemed unflappable, completely immune to surprise and ready for everything they threw out. The sudden reveal of a massive dragon monster being still prominent in his mind. As soon as they pulled out a threat, the shrouded responded with an even more powerful counter.

So, he was impressed. More than impressed, he was in awe. The ground combat seemed even more impressive. The undead army that had slaughtered their Ethermen? Gone. Suddenly, the top powerhouses were on the ropes. Russell didn’t fail to notice the one in black armor taking on multiple Ethermen at once, showing he was still more powerful than them.

That being said, who cared? If the Ethermen had the numbers necessary to overpower the pale man, who cared if he was stronger than any one of them? Russell certainly didn’t. He just wanted these shrouded out of his way so he could go back to getting his job done. The more resources they consumed on this pack of surprisingly powerful no-names, the less they had to deal with the true powerhouses.

The Liberation’s scanners picked up the building power from the two shrouded that were hiding, much the same as the Ethermen did. Russell got more than a little nervous looking at the numbers their sensors were putting out. It was on par with some of the data they had on peak-level shrouded.

As far as he knew, the Revolution had never designed anything with that kind of power in mind. That was why the suppression field was made, after all. If a peak level shrouded used their aura, nothing the Revolution had made would hold up. And now he was seeing that kind of output, in the suppression field, but unaffected by the Revolution's trump card.

There was a single, bright moment of hope when the Ethermen almost managed to take out the shrouded producing those numbers. It was a near thing, they almost didn’t make it. The pale warrior was an absolute beast and nearly held them back. Plus, Russell wasn’t expecting all the extra guards to spring out of nowhere. But they got it.

Until they didn’t.

At that last moment, another shrouded showed up with the most perfect timing Russell had ever seen. He could almost laugh at that last second save. That was some storybook bullshit, as far as he was concerned. No one got saved at the last second like that.

Russell’s bright moment of hope disappeared faster than he could have believed as he watched the new shrouded single-handedly tear his way through Etherman after Etherman. His actions even relieved enough pressure on the others for them to finish their fights as well. In hardly more time than it’d taken Vessel 73 to reach the ground, the Ethermen were destroyed.

And their ship! Russell involuntarily shuddered thinking about what happened to the ethership. That beam of light, the readings their sensors took. And then that abyss with its grabbing, tar-like tendrils. Their sensors couldn't even get a reading on it, which was somehow even more terrifying than the stupidly high numbers they’d spit out after seeing that beam.

Russell had to acknowledge it. Somehow, the Revolution had missed several top tier shrouded. Shrouded that had managed to miss their trap at the main meeting hall and even had managed to defeat the suppression field. That was literally the definition of their worst case scenario. In fact, it was three worst-case scenarios bundled together.

The planning committee for this operation had contingencies for any undiscovered peak shrouded. They had plans for any that avoided the meeting hall trap. They even had ideas for dealing with shrouded that beat the suppression field. No one, in their worst nightmares, had imagined all three of those would happen together, or that multiple peak shrouded would manage to do so together.

It was so much worse that they were all together. Perhaps if they were isolated, some of their contingencies would work. But with so many powerful shrouded working together, their chances of winning were essentially nil.

And that was ignoring the portals. The portals were almost worse, somehow. Portal technology was the second-most important invention the Revolution had made. The idea that the shrouded had somehow managed to beat the Revolution’s greatest invention and replicate the second-greatest was mind boggling to say the least.

And it wasn’t just a shroud, Russell noted. The portals might be based on a shroud domain, but the portals were at least partly ethertech. And that was terrifying. The only thing allowing the Revolution to compete with the shrouded was their superior ethertech. If the shrouded somehow managed to catch up…

By the time the army of monsters started pouring out with artillery seemingly designed specifically to counter the Revolution’s etherships, Russell couldn’t do more than shrug. At this point, why not? That might as well happen. It’s not like the situation could get much worse at this point. It wouldn’t be long before the Liberation itself was under threat, and that would be the end of it.

If there was any consolation Russell could take away from all of this, it was the satisfaction of knowing that Travis was fucked.

{}

Travis was fucked. A great start had slipped into true nightmare territory as he watched from above while the situation devolved around a few shrouded that somehow managed to ignore the suppression field. That wasn’t supposed to be possible, not in groups. The Revolution had only planned around maybe one shrouded having a domain that countered the field. A group was never on the table.

It was at this point that Travis realized the situation had slipped out of his depth. He’d been part of the planning, and the elements of the mission he knew about were going well, as far as he could tell. Surprisingly enough, the shrouded leadership was being kept in check. Many were injured from the massive explosion Travis had helped plan. The continual bombardment and suppression field was enough to contain them and slowly wear them down.

But this unexpected factor had left his mind blank. Initially, Travis had watched their contingencies kick in with limited success. Travis wanted to take control, to do something. He was supposed to be in charge! But every solution he thought up was already part of the playbook, and the Liberation’s commander was implementing them practically as Travis was thinking of them.

Travis would have jumped in, taken command, if he could just think of something to say. He knew that Russell, the commander in charge of the Liberation, didn’t respect him. He hadn’t exactly been secretive about it. Travis knew that many of his supposed subordinates grated at his control. It wasn’t hard to see why.

He’d walked into this job with a chip on his shoulder, and it bit him in the ass. Travis had enough self-awareness to recognize that. But it didn’t mean he wanted to let go of his position. Yet he didn’t know what to do to actually lead. He was left sitting here, on this tower, watching things fall apart.

Somehow, he’d managed to lead them into a losing battle. Part of Travis wanted to rail against that responsibility. He couldn’t have possibly predicted this group of unknown, hyper-capable shrouded appearing out of nowhere. That couldn’t possibly be his fault. He’d been consumed by thoughts and excuses like that for a while once things started to fall apart.

But it was his fault. Shrouded of that power couldn’t hide, not for long. If they’d waited for the attack until the planned time, it was likely these hidden masters would have been discovered. And why did they not have they not have that time? Travis started working with that idiot Harmon.

More prep time would have given them a stronger position going into combat. Their own people wouldn’t have been caught off guard so badly. They might have even had time to implement a few more contingencies. All of that went out the window because Travis decided to involve a volatile and narcissistic shrouded. All because he was trying to be clever.

At least his changes to the initial plans were working. The situation at the meeting hall, the entire reason he’d involved Harmon in the first place, was going better than expected. The explosives that had collapsed the whole building had managed to kill several powerful shrouded, and the ones that were left were injured, and expended large quantities of their power to stay alive.

Travis had no idea what he’d do if that had fallen through. The current crisis would have been for nothing. But it had worked, which made the rest of this at least redeemable. He just didn’t know how. The problem only seemed to grow with time.

It was when one of the Experimental Vessels showed up that Travis knew things were officially beyond bad. Those were the Founder’s testing tools. They weren’t meant to be used at all, let alone in an active combat scenario. It also meant that the Founder was aware of what was going on here and hadn’t talked to him.

That cut deep. Travis was supposed to be the Founder’s apprentice. He was meant to carry on that legacy when the Founder eventually passed. The fact that he was aware of Travis’s failure and hadn’t even bothered to call him was like a hot knife in Travis’s chest. He’d lost the Founder’s trust.

As he was having this thought and watching the fleet be literally pulled out of the sky that Travis’s communicator rang. It hadn’t done so since the attack began, and looking at it, Travis saw it was from the last person he expected. He accepted the call. What else was he going to do?

“Founder.” Travis sighed, “I’ve failed you.”

“What? Nonsense my boy, nonsense!” The voice of his mentor laughed across the connection. “The adjustments you made were brilliant. A bit short-sighted, yes. One with more experience could have expected a shrouded like Harmon to fly off the handle at some point. Those with more power than sense tend to do so at the first inconvenience. But I put you in charge of this operation specifically to gain such experience. Lessons like this are best learned first hand. And it worked, I might add! Do you think you would have admitted your failure so readily before you took on this command role?”

Travis was stunned. He’d never imagined that the Founder had expected him to fail. “B-but the Experimental Vessel-”

“Oh, that was just a bit of fun on my part.” The Founder dismissed his concerns. “I saw an opportunity for some field testing of one of my designs that was farther along than the others. It was about time that I got some live combat data. And did I ever! That little battle was a treasure trove of information. It’ll take me weeks to parse it all and even longer to implement the improvements I’ll discover. A fruitful endeavor to be sure.”

“O-oh.” Travis sighed. “I was worried you’d lost your faith in me.”

“No, my young protege, I have not.” He laughed again. “I have been watching you the whole time, and I am once more impressed by your ingenuity and growth.

“Now,” His tone shifted, “I have something of a test for you. One less related to your leadership skills and more about your combat prowess.”

“Of course, Founder!” Travis wasn’t about to let him down now!

“I’m sure you’re aware of the base this rogue group of shrouded are using.”

Travis nodded, even if it didn’t transfer over the audio connection.

“Simple enough, I want you to go there and kill the shrouded guarding that location.”

“Kill a shrouded? On my own?” Travis couldn’t help but ask. He’d killed shrouded before, but only the very weakest of them, the dregs of society. A true shrouded would be too much for most any unshrouded, no matter the ethertech they had.

“The tech I’ve given you should be up to the task if only you use it intelligently. I believe in you.”

The connection cut.

“Well,” Travis let out a sigh, looking at the arena covered in dark chains in the distance. “I guess I’m going to kill a shrouded. In single combat. Fuck.”