They are running.
They run and run and run, the earth beneath their feet scorched black in the flames of war, screams and begs and cannon fire scoring the air around them, their vision reduced to each other, the opposing soldiers and the countless dead, and still they run.
His hand is held tight in Haze's, her grip an iron clamp that keeps them bound together as they run. He has no idea where Lora and Jin are; two had dived one way, two the other, and they didn't exactly have the time to seek their companions out. So. They run.
Fresh air seems in short supply - his breaths come quick and desperate, bringing only smoke and the intense desire to choke. He can't stop to cough, though. He has to run. He fights through the pain, gasping for air even faster to compensate, and he runs.
Haze hits out with her staff, sending a gust of wind with it, and the two soldiers in their path fall. Three more take their place. One takes a stab at him, and Haze yanks him out of danger while swinging her staff to block. Wind bursts from the clash, knocking all three over. The momentary distraction is grasped, and they continue their desperate run.
He doesn't register that he's fallen until he hits the ground hard, ingesting a mouthful of dirt as he impacts. The need to cough overtakes him and he hacks on the barren floor, hunching over as if it will help (it doesn't).
Gentle hands wrap around his arms. "Come on, Mikhail," Haze urges, trying to pull him up. For his part, he tries to stand, but his body doesn't seem willing to comply. "We can't stop. We have to keep running."
"Too late," a voice sings from behind, and Haze instantly spins to place herself between Mikhail and the newcomer.
Newcomers. Soldiers - too many for Mikhail to count - have caught up, cutting off their route back to the camp - back to what was the camp. Finally, far too late, Mikhail is able to scramble to his feet, and the coughing fit subsides.
"Mikhail," Haze says softly, reaching back to wrap a hand in his. "You need to run. I'll hold them off. Run."
And she will die. Mikhail has no doubts about that. He doesn't understand the intricacies behind a Blade's life, but he knows they can die, and he knows Haze will if he leaves her.
Haze and Lora and Jin are all he has without Milton (and Milton is someone he doesn't want to think about right now, can't think about, has not let himself think about since it happened). They are the closest thing he has to a family.
Milton, he is sure, would want him to live, but he does not want to live on alone.
He has not spoken since Milton, did not speak much before, but now he stares resolutely at Haze's turned back and, with all the conviction he can muster through his terror, says: "No."
He has lost so much. He refuses to lose any more.
"Mikhail, please," Haze says, her own terror plain in her voice, and she squeezes his hand as if to beg.
He squeezes back. "No."
"Aww, how touching," one of the soldiers sneers. "Get them!"
Haze thrusts her staff into the air with both hands as the soldiers begin to charge them, and the enemy Blades slump, useless, to the ground. Some of the drivers falter, others don't even hesitate. She follows her opening attack up by dropping it, throwing wind towards their assailants in a gust so strong that Mikhail stumbles into her back, and immediately returns her staff to the air. The Blades, barely recovered, crumple once more, and their drivers trip over them as they're thrust backwards.
The staff is lowered and Mikhail's hand is grabbed once more. "Move," she hisses - Haze is a healer, she knows her limits, she can't take on all these soldiers alone - and they start to run once more.
One moment she is there, hand firmly gripping his, then Mikhail blinks and she is gone.
He stops and turns, confusion and desperation and fear overtaking him, and his foot smacks into a rock.
No. Not a rock. A core crystal, dull and lifeless, as black as the charred earth it lies on.
No.
"Haze!"
"Oh dear," the same soldier from before says, clambering to his feet. "From touching to tragic. Guess we got her driver, just like we'll get you too."
So Lora is - Lora, and Jin, and Haze - they are all-
No!
"You're not much of a threat without your guard dog, are you," the soldier is saying, accepting the weapon he'd dropped previously from his Blade without looking. "Young, fit, healthy - you seem suitable for the Praetor. We'll take you alive, I think."
Mikhail has been unable to tear his eyes away from Haze's core crystal. Run, he can almost hear her begging, leave me and run.
To that idea, Mikhail still says no, because what point is there to life without people he loves to share it with?
He makes a split-second decision and dives for the crystal, scooping it up with trembling fingers
Run, he hears her whisper, so he does.
He doesn't get very far. A Gort-like creature (what was up with those? What monster had created them, and, perhaps more importantly, why?) grins down at him like a predator sizing up its prey. Other soldiers, both human and Blade, surround him in a circle originating from the creature, weapons all pointing firmly at Mikhail.
He skids to a stop, core crystal clutched to his chest, and swivels in search of an escape. He finds none but the possibility of death on the edge of one of the many spears aimed his way. He considers a suicidal charge at those spears for the briefest of moments, but the knowledge that the people he cared for wouldn't want that (or perhaps the futile hope that they weren't all dead, and he wasn't alone) kept him from it.
Maybe it was fear. Fear of death, and of what came after. Maybe he was just weak.
He couldn't say for sure.
"Nice try, kid," the soldier says as he grabs Mikhail's arm tightly from behind. "But we'll be taking you both."
The last thing he remembers is a sharp pain in his head as he blacks out.