A/N:
RK: Okay, so this is a few days late and I apologize! In my defense, I was out of town after dealing with college finals (let me tell you that was a PAIN) and I had an art project I had to finish before going out of town.
Anywho, I hope you enjoy the chapter!
Due to the nature of their journey to St. Binah, Peony had managed to get them a few carriages to ride in so they could arrive faster, cutting their trip to the town almost in half. And Valeria found it amusing that Jade had decided to ride with her and Nyla in order to get her account of what had happened in Theor Forest.
When she finished telling him, he had sighed but didn't seem to think it wise to comment about the situation. Valeria was beginning to think he finally understood that she actually wouldn't listen to him all the time when he tried to order her around.
It was actually smart of him. Especially since she actually wouldn't go against him or the others unless they tried to start something with her.
Once they got to St. Binah, Jade stopped to talk to his men, who had either been following them or had been ordered to arrive here from other locations, while the rest of the group waited at the entrance to the town. When he finally finished with his update, Jade moved back to where they stood, ready to head inside and talk with McGovern.
The soldiers at the military compound found no reason to stop them so they were let through with ease and apparently they were lucky to arrive in the middle of a conversation between the two McGoverns.
"I told you, Father, with Kaizur overrun; we cannot afford to have troops leave the city."
"But if we don't evacuate the civilians, St. Binah will become the next Akzeriuth!" Field Marshal McGovern told his son.
"We cannot make a move without an order from His Imperial Majesty." Glenn argued.
"If an order from Emperor Peony is what you're waiting for, we just brought it!" Luke told them, leading the way in for the rest of them.
Valeria nudged Nyla, indicating the other side of the table so the two of them could be out of the way until she was needed, which wasn't likely at this point in time.
"Colonel Curtiss?!" McGovern exclaimed, eyes widening. "You're alive!"
"What did His Majesty say?" Elder McGovern asked them.
"We're to evacuate the civilians to the Engeve area."
"But," McGovern argued against Jade. "That will mean leaving the city unguarded..."
"Who cares?! This whole area's started to fall!"
Jade shot Luke a look for his outburst but didn't address him and focused on McGovern. "I have a number of my troops here now, and more will be ready to help take over escorting the civilians partway along the route. Once the civilians are out, please have your remaining forces go west to join General Nordheim's forces on the East Rugnica Plains."
"Understood." McGovern sighed. "So we're abandoning St. Binah..."
The elder of the two McGoverns didn't look entirely too happy with the situation either, but he didn't seem as visibly stressed about it like his son. To Valeria it seemed like he'd known something like this was going to happen since he nodded his consent without a moment's hesitation. "Right, I'll inform the residents."
Valeria held up at hand before he could move away. "Field Marshal? Is there a chance there are some maps of the city we can have access to quickly? It'd be easier for all of us if we can start by designating areas for us all to focus on first to make the evacuation easier."
The elder raised his brows but nodded. "We should have a couple upstairs in the archives."
"I'll get them and bring them out to show the soldiers within the town." Glenn offered, moving towards the door.
"That works," the blonde told them. She looked at Jade. "How many of your troops are you bringing into the town to help?
"About half until we get a significant amount of the townsfolk out. Do you have a plan?"
"Working it out as I go, but I figured we should keep your men towards the beginning of the town since they won't know much of the layout like the soldiers stationed here do. We'll have them focus on areas towards the back of the town and work their way forward while your men work on rounding up those in the town central to move out."
"How about carts?" Luke asked. "You did that back in Akzeriuth, right? To get the injured out of the town faster. We could do that here as well, focusing on the women and children, right?"
"Wow, I hadn't known you'd paid attention to that..." Valeria blinked. "But you're right about that. Since the ground has already begun to shake and fall there are probably some injured people who need to be carted out. That's what this group could focus on," she decided, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Find as many carts as you can, clear them off if they have product on it since the product can eventually be replaced and begin helping the injured, elderly, woman and children onto them, focusing on the first two before the others. Once that's done, lead them to the soldiers at the front of the town and they will start leading them out."
Natalia, Guy and Tear nodded, heading out first to begin doing just that. Luke hesitated a moment. "Thanks..."
"For what?"
"For agreeing with my idea."
Valeria snorted. "It was a good idea, something I probably would've come up with once Jade and I went to the makeshift soldier command outpost. But since you helped come up with it here I gave the task to you, so you don't have to thank me."
Luke nodded once more and left, leaving the rest of them inside.
"Evacuating the entire population of a town certainly is backbreaking work." Jade commented as they walked outside.
"True, but we were doing this back in Akzeriuth as well." Valeria pointed out.
"We have to make things really clear, or people could seriously panic." Anise added.
Valeria nodded, biting her fingernail as she thought of the things that needed to get done. They arrived at the small command post that had quickly been set up, Glenn having just brought the maps to the table.
Jade leaned over a couple of them to study them while Valeria took in the troops they had in front of them. A number of captains looked around at the higher ranking officers for orders but they all were pretty much focused on Jade, Glenn and her.
"Valeria?"
"Right," the blonde nodded. "I'll need hands raised for my next few questions. Firstly, who here knows the back corners of the town? Those of you who raised your hands, please form on group on the right. Now, who knows the center of the town? You all form a group in the center. And lastly, who knows the layout of the beginning of the town where the shops are? Form a final group on the left."
As each of the groups did this, Valeria leaned down next to Jade to ask him a couple of questions. Once she had his answers, she looked at all the captains and began handing them maps of the town, indicating the sections that they would be in charge of.
"Our main goal is to get out the people as quickly as possible without many disturbances. We already have a group gathering as many carts as they can to help us get out those who'll have issues walking. Right now, we need to begin telling people about the evacuation so they can be ready when we come for them. We can't get everyone out all at once or it'll be a disaster so we'll be forming different groups of citizens to escort out of the city; beginning with the people towards the back, since if the town falls they'll have the hardest time getting out. Once that area is clear we'll move on to other parts of the town. So even though the groups are portioned for each section at the moment we're only doing small bits at a time." Valeria looked at Glenn to see if he had anything else to add.
"Try and make sure we keep things as simple as possible, we don't want anyone to panic. Dismissed!"
The instant the men ran off to begin their tasks Valeria turned back to Jade. "Tell me again why you pretty much had me giving out orders?"
"As I recall, these drills are among the ones that your brother drilled into your head more than any of the others."
Valeria grumbled under her breath. "Fine, but next time speak up more. I'm not an actual member of the military; I should've only been a part of the planning stage, not the commanding stage."
Jade chuckled softly. "And yet you handle yourself better than most captains. Never forget that your brother took the time to make sure you had a commanding presence to deal with situations like this if no one else could."
Valeria sighed. "I still don't like it… Anyway, we need to help out as well. The sooner we get done the better."
Jade nodded in agreement and walked off with a group of soldiers heading towards the back of the city. Valeria knew better than to go that direction, since she'd never been to St. Binah other than for supplies up in the entrance portion of the city. So going back in that direction would make her get lost.
The blonde blinked and looked around.
Where did Nyla go…?
Shaking her head, Valeria knew the Arka wouldn't just run off for no reason. Nyla will be fine, so she needs to focus on helping people get out of the city.
Hopefully it'll end better than Akzeriuth…
There were a couple of times where Valeria almost lost it when dealing with some of the people and soldiers.
The work by itself was tedious, since getting the citizens out of the town in a timely manner was hard, especially without causing massive panic. But add to the fact that some of the citizens weren't listening and a number of the soldiers were questioning her orders and Valeria was having a hard time keeping her frustration in.
Another reason she wished Jade would've been the one giving the orders instead of her...
In the end the soldiers finally agreed to do what she asked, and the citizens began to calm down once things were explained completely. So all in all things were going okay with only a few pieces that were wrong.
Though Valeria still had no idea where Nyla was...
It was day two of the evacuation and the back portions of the town were already moving towards the town entrance, with a good number of troops beginning to lead the way to Engave with about a third of the population.
Valeria had really only seen the others a couple of times throughout the past day and a half and in all honesty had only gotten a small two hour nap before having to get back up to help the soldiers with the citizens.
At the moment she was outside the town at a base camp the soldiers had set up positions at. The citizens were to meet here when they were gathered from their homes with their families and would then be grouped to be escorted with the correct amount of soldiers.
Luckily, no Kimlascan soldiers had managed to make it this far to make their lives difficult yet but Valeria knew the war was only beginning, so both sides were mostly preparing at the moment.
She could only hope that the preparations on both sides would continue for a while longer so they could get everyone out safely.
Another soldier ran up to the table just them and saluted. "Ma'am! Another update from Captains Ricker and Hasher!"
Valeria stared at the soldier blankly for half a moment, thinking he was talking to someone else. But after a quick glance around and the dawning that he'd used the word 'ma'am' that finally registered in her tired mind she realized he was talking to her. After all, at the moment she was the only female sitting in the circle around the maps.
Why her?
Sighing, she nodded for him to continue.
"We have another two groups of the townsfolk ready to be escorted towards Engave on your orders. They'll be taking two of the healers we have in case anything should happen on the way. We also got a rider from the first group, they've reached the halfway point between the two towns and once they've safely gotten the citizens there half of their numbers will be coming back to assist."
It bothered her that he said it was going to be on her orders. Glenn. Jade and even Elder McGovern all had higher standing that she did, actually, most of the other people sitting at this table did. Ugh... She hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep to deal with that annoying train of thought. "Good, they can head out when ready. Anyone have any idea where Colonel Curtiss is?"
She had a bone to pick with him.
One of the men surrounding the maps raised an eyebrow. "He's in the tent set aside for Captains, he walked in there last night after you went to pass out."
Valeria blinked. She honestly hadn't noticed anyone else in the tent, having figured that she needed to get back out here to help with anything else that was behind schedule.
Though in all honesty, they were actually ahead of schedule because the soldiers were quick to solve problems if the citizens explained what they needed and vice versa.
Standing from her chair, Valeria walked into the tent that Jade was supposedly in and sure enough, he was lying on his side sleeping under a blanket. As were Guy and Tear.
Since she wasn't sure when they'd gotten to sleep, Valeria figured she should just leave them be and decided to actually make an attempt to find the others...
...by asking the soldiers.
She was directed to a different tent and she peeked in to see that the rest of the group was inside... All except Luke...
"Final question," Valeria told those around the maps, walking back over for a final time. "Have you seen an idiot red head that is probably over working himself?"
A few of the men chuckled at her description but apparently one of them actually knew where Luke was, pointing into the town behind them. "I believe I saw him last night near the inn, he'd worked himself hard and had managed to fall asleep on an empty cart."
"Thanks, I'll go make sure he hasn't died yet."
Before leaving, she thought about asking about Nyla, but decided against it. Her best friend would come back when she was ready and was likely helping out in her own way, she was resourceful like that.
Heading inside the town, Valeria turned towards the inn and made her way over. She blinked when she saw the innkeeper standing outside staring at the rising sun. She'd dealt with him before when she'd come to the city for supplies, he'd given her a single room that was still large enough for Nyla to sprawl out in.
He noticed her looking and waived her over. "Hey, are you friends with the red head who passed out on the cart last night?"
Valeria smirked. "I guess you can say that, any idea where he's at?"
She'd noticed that of the two carts within eyesight, no one was in either of them.
"Two of the guys helped him into my inn last night; kid was so tired he only complained once." The innkeeper told her, turning on his heel and motioning her to follow.
He led her into one of the first rooms available to stay in and gestured to Luke. The red head was curled up around a pillow, drool dripping from his mouth and short hair stuck up at odd angles.
It actually looked kinda cute.
And immensely similar to one of the times she'd seen Asch curled up on his side when they'd been stranded during a storm…
Shaking her head, Valeria moved over to Luke and poked at his side. "Hey Luke…" another poke "Luuuuke…"
He made a grumbling noise and turned over, making Valeria fight between a smile and a sigh. Poking him for a final time and attempting a gentle shove gave her no different results. Rolling her eyes, Valeria gripped the sheets that lay beneath him and gave a big tug, effectively pulling the sheets out from under him and sending Luke sprawling to the floor face first.
His immediate reaction, which Valeria mentally applauded, was to jump up and get on the defensive. However since he actually didn't have his sword strapped to him the effort was wasted and his eyes also widened when they landed on her.
Valeria eyed Luke with a smirk. "I hear you overworked yourself yesterday; on one hand I want to applaud you for working so hard. But on the other, if you overwork yourself and get injured because of this then you're of no use to anyone."
Luke looked down at her words, making her sigh and run her hand through her bangs. "I'm not trying to make you feel bad, I'm only explaining that you need to be careful and rest or take a break if you get tired. We still have a long way to go."
Luke nodded and looked over at the innkeeper still by the door. "Oh hey! Thanks for letting me stay here, sorry if I was any trouble."
Is it weird that Valeria still finds it odd that he apologizes?
The man nodded. "I remember seeing you running around yesterday, you definitely needed the rest. Keep up the good work, and as the lady said, don't overdo it."
He pulled out a small bag from behind his back and held it out to them. Valeria took it and opened it to see two small breakfast sandwiches. The innkeeper smiled as he scratched his head. "The wife always makes too much food and she wanted to use up the stuff that can't be brought along, so feel free to eat up."
"Thank you, we'll come back to help you and your wife when it's time for you all to evacuate," Valeria told him, steering Luke out of the inn and heading further into town.
She handed one of the sandwiches to Luke and opened the second, grimacing when she noticed it was covered in a bunch of grease from the meat. Before Luke could open his, she handed hers to him. He looked like he wanted to argue but then realize why she'd handed it over and didn't argue.
"Thanks," Luke told her after they'd walked in silence for a bit.
"Pretty sure I haven't done anything warranting thanks." Valeria commented, taking a bite of the banana she'd pulled from a bag.
"Just... You've been treating me nicer than some of the others." He held up his hands quickly. "Not that I don't understand why they're treating me that way. I just... It feels nice when people don't treat me too differently."
Valeria stopped walking suddenly and turned to face Luke. "I'm not treating you nicer than normal, I'm treating you how I treat anyone who isn't family." She sighed, running a hand along her face. "I'll make this as clear as I can: everyone makes mistakes."
She paused to let that sink in for a moment. "I will admit that some make more than others but it's what we do once we make those mistakes that make us who we are. It's not fair to always keep lording a situation over a person, there's really no point since it'll just make you bitter."
Valeria took another bite of her banana, tilting her head. "So no, I'm not going to treat you like the others are treating you, and besides, I never trusted any of you other than Jade to begin with, so it's not like you need to regain my trust. Just do the best you can to help out."
"You probably meant to give me a stern lecture or something, but that honestly did make me feel better," Luke chuckled.
"Let me put it to you this way: you're here, walking next to me and looking over what's going on in this town. You've also been following the orders I've been giving since the moment we began evacuating this place," Valeria pointed out. "Yet I stood against all of you in Theor Forest when Sync was involved. So answer me this, why are you okay with me now as opposed to then? Why follow my orders at all?"
"Well... " Luke blinked, as if he'd forgotten about that. "Jade trusts you, so there's that. Also... You've helped us a lot in the past, so I guess I can't judge you badly because of one time stood against us..." Luke trailed off, eyes widening on what he just said.
Valeria nodded. "I've learned to give some people, though not all, the benefit of the doubt. Had you not decided to change, and the change was evident when I first saw you again back in Daath and I don't just mean your hair, I would've written you off. But you clearly want to do better, case in point what you've done in the town yesterday. So as long as you try and do better, I won't hold things against you."
Luke ran a hand through his hair, a sheepish look on his face.
"Also, if you think Jade trusts me, you're fooling yourself," she told him. "In all honestly, I don't think he actually trusts anyone completely. Though I suppose he has to trust some a little bit or else nothing would get done."
Luke laughed at that. "So what did you come looking for me for?"
"The other are still asleep, but I wanted to do a quick sweep through the town just to see what else needs to be done. Since I wasn't entirely sure where you were at, I figured I should hunt you down." Valeria explained, tossing her banana peel into a trash bin nearby. "So now you can either come with me, or head outside of town to our little encampment and see what's going on there."
Luke thought about it for a moment. "I'll come along with you in case you need help with anything."
Valeria nodded and the two of them set off to wander around the deserted streets of the town. Only twice were they actually asked to help out by a few citizens but most of the people who were still in the town were waiting inside their homes to be fetched for their time to evacuate.
They arrived back at the outpost after some time to find the rest of their group up and eating breakfast. Jade and Guy looked at the two of them, a little surprised to see them.
"How long have you two been up?"
"I've been up for about four hours; I found Luke two hours or so ago and we walked around the twon to prep a couple of things," Valeria explained to Guy. She then looked at Jade. "I also gave permission for the second group of citizens to be taken from here to Engave; they should've left by now."
"They just finished pulling out when I woke up an hour ago," Jade told her.
"So all that's left is to prepare for the last mass group, shall we start?"
The others all agreed and quickly finished their food before pairing up with some soldiers again to start going out and collecting citizens.
Halfway through the day, with more than half of the remaining people gathered outside the town while the rest were being grouped in the town square, Valeria looked up sharply. She wasn't sure what it was, but there was an odd noise in the air.
Looking around through the sky, she noticed something coming in from the distance and sighed.
"Hey, Luke?"
The red head, who had volunteered to be paired with her group today, looked over at her. "Yeah?"
"Please run and get Jade, we're about to have company..."
He gave her a questioning look but seemed to think better of asking her what she meant and rushed off to do as she asked. Not even a few minutes later she heard laughter coming from the sky as a floating chair came into view.
"Aah hah hah hah hah hah! I've finally found—" Dist stopped suddenly and looked around confused. "Huh…?"
Valeria hung her head, Dist really was idiotic. "Dist, what are you doing here?"
The lilac haired man blinked at her stupidly for a few moments. "I could've sworn Jade was here..."
"He is," Valeria supplied helpfully. "But he's busy at the moment, can I take a message?"
"Don't get smart with me Valeria! Where is the Fon Master!?"
"And here I thought you were looking for Jade, tsk tsk Dist, make up your mind."
Dist glared at her. "Valeria!"
"Dist!" She retorted, smirking. She then dropped the banter and got serious. "Why are you working with Aeron?"
Dist recoiled, slamming against the back of his chair at the venom in her tone. "Aeron? That poison wielding manic? Some other guy brought him in; I had nothing to do with it."
Valeria scowled. "Some other guy?"
"Yes! Van came back to the Order one day with Aeron and another man and told the rest of us that he was forming another section of the Order off the books to deal with unusual situations."
Valeria ground her teeth at that, though she really shouldn't be surprised. She opened her mouth to ask more but before she could, Luke was running back over with Jade and Tear by his side.
Jade looked up at Dist with an annoyed look. "Dist, you never were able to tell when you're not wanted."
"Say what you like! I'm taking Fon Master Ion!"
"I'm afraid not." Jade informed him. "Now move."
"Are you trying to save these worms? And after you gave up on Professor Nebilim!"
"...Are you still pursuing that foolishness?!"
"You have no right to criticize me! You gave up before you even started! Now, hand over the Fon Master!"
Valeria faced palmed once more, these two always go off in their own world when Dist gets like this. It almost seemed like they, or at least Dist, had forgotten that the rest of them were there.
And unluckily for them, Dist had decided to come more prepared than they'd thought, since in the next moment a robot came falling from the sky. It landed with a huge thud on the ground that had Valeria cringing when a crumbling sound was heard moments later.
Whirling around, Valeria locked eyes with the Captain of her group. "We'll handle this, make a large berth in the area and get the remaining citizens out ASAP!"
The captain nodded and began barking orders to the other soldiers there and the citizens who were around began to dash out of the way. Within moments the square center was empty of everyone except their group and Dist, who had entered the robot and booted it up.
Valeria flicked her eyes to the edge of the area and hoped that the people who were being quickly escorted would be out of the line of fire soon.
Tear and Jade both slipped into a casting stance while Luke pulled out his sword, running at the machine right as Dist gets it to rise up at them.
Luke, having fought against Dist's robots before, immediately knew to side step the incoming strike from the thing's arm, lunging forward to slice at the wires that were hanging outside the machine. Though Dist appeared to have gotten smarted with this incarnation of the Kaiser Dist, seeing as the slicing of the wires appeared to do nothing to hinder the robot.
It did, however, allow for Tear and Jade to both finish casting, the melodist calling forth an arte Valeria had never seen before.
"Éclair de Larmes!" She called out, bolts of light forming above the robot and turning to strike the center of the machine, piecing a couple layers of the machine as Jade's arte finished as well, the Flame Burst coating the freed wires in flames before the machine's natural defenses put the flames out.
The moment the flames were out, Luke was there again, slicing at the wires until the machine threw the swordsman off. As Luke tried to get up, the machine was on him, firing a beam of energy heading towards the downed swordsman.
Valeria, finishing up with helping the soldiers move the other citizens, lunged from her position on the side lines, knocking into Luke to push him out of the way.
Rolling to her side, she hissed in pain and clutched her arm where the tail edge of the energy beam managed to singe her right below the shoulder.
Luke moved to check her but she shoved him the other way, towards the robot and rolled out of the way once more.
Luke realized what she wanted and nodded, going after the robot to distract it so that it was led away from her. Once it was far enough away Tear was by her side, casting the arte to heal the injury.
Jade made his way over while Luke continued to keep Dist away, "You know you're going to have to make an effort in this, right? Use stronger artes, this really shouldn't be drawn out much longer."
Valeria caught his unsaid meaning and sighed. She understood where he was coming from so she nodded and dropped into a casting stance. As she gathered the fourth fonons Valeria noticed that they seemed to be pulsing in the air. It was almost as if they were waiting for something to happen, a change to occur.
What exactly…?
Shaking her head, Valeria flicked her hand out, drawing fonons into the palm of her hand, clenching her fist once they gathered. "This I summon, icy breath cover my enemies to sleep forever within my hateful ice."
Flinging her hand at the robot, Valeria felt the fonons bunch together, a lot more fonons than usual, as they raced along the surface of the robot. "Frigid Coffin!"
Luke quickly ducked out of the way, clutching his arm from a wound he hadn't been able to avoid getting. Once out of the way, it allowed the full force of the arte to hit the robot as Jade followed up with an arte she hadn't seen from him in a long time.
"Ground Dasher!"
Both artes did excessive amounts of damage to the machine and right as her arte faded, Valeria realized the two bunches of fonons had tried to combine together. Had Jade released his arte sooner, a new arte might've been formed.
She filed that information away for later.
The two artes, along with the amount of damage Luke had done to the wiring, had the machine making weird noises. It made one final jump at them, that all of them managed to dodge. Right as it landed, Tear let another Éclair de Larnes off and it hit the machine dead center.
It stumbled and crashed down to the ground with a huge jolt. The jolt sent the fonons in the air into a frenzy, Valeria flinched at the feeling and noticed that the fourth fonons just disappeared. The ground began shaking as Dist got free of his destroyed machine, yelling words at them that Valeria wasn't paying attention too.
Her focus was on the ground around them, but mostly in front of them.
She wasn't sure where the others were, but she knew that the evacuation was still going on. Finally, the ground gave one more final large shake before the crumbling began. Valeria cried out as she fell, knocking into Tear. The two of them quickly moved to get up, rushing after Jade with Luke towards where the ground was beginning to fall.
They reached the edge of the ground right as it broke off; jumping to the safe part of the ground before it fully came apart.
Valeria stood up and turned, looking back and scowling. There in the center of the square was a large group of citizens, along with the Field Marshall.
"Damn it Dist!" Valeria hissed.
Luke seemed to realize she'd paid attention to something since he came over. "Damn it, McGovern and the others are…!"
"Luke wait! I'll jump down and sing a fonic hymn!"
"Wait. A considerable number of residents still remain," Jade interrupted. "You can't protect them all with your hymn. Let's thing of a more definite plan."
Valeria sighed, rubbing her fingers along her forehead. She was trying to think of something when she felt someone grab her arm. She whirled around to yell at them when she realized it was Jade.
"Valeria, where is Nyla?"
That was a thought that she wasn't really wanting to contemplate. She hadn't seen her best friend since yesterday and the fact that she didn't know whether Nyla was down below or not worried her.
Sounds from behind them had everyone turning as Guy and a few soldiers ran over.
"You're all okay!" Guy exclaimed, relief on his face.
"Not everyone…" Luke muttered, looking down at the people still on the falling land.
"If only we had a way to reach them," Tear muttered.
"A way to reach them…" Guy mused, "hey, I heard they were doing flight experiments in Sheridan."
"Flight experiments? What's that?" Luke asked.
"If I recall, they have an ancient hover drive that was excavated by the Order. Supposedly back in Yulia's age, they attached those to vehicles and flew in them. All the fon machine buffs have been talking about it." Guy explained.
Valeria grinned. "Oh yeah, there are experiments under way. From what I've been told, since I love keeping track of these things, they already finished a machine and should be testing it soon. I've been contemplating ditching town to go and see that before I got involved in this."
"That's perfect! Let's go borrow whatever they're using for the experiments! If we hurry, maybe we can save the people!"
"Will we be in time?" Jade brought up, stopping Luke's excitement. "The situation looks different than Akzeriuth, but even still..."
"From what I heard from Van, it took several days for Hod to fall." Tear informed them. "There's a force field called the 'dividing line' between the Qliphoth and the Outer Lands. He said they fell faster just after crossing that line."
"So we have some time before things get too bad, good to know," Valeria mused. She then looked over at Guy and the other soldiers. "Any chance you've seen my Arka?"
Guy blinked then nodded. "Yeah, she just got back from helping to escort a batch of citizens. She apparently was helping to pull one of the carts until they could find a horse to take over."
Valeria breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, then let's go and gather the others and make our way to Sheridan."
Fun Fact: I originally had planned a different ending for this chapter to showcase the move that Nyla had developed back a few chapters during the Sword Dancer fight. But instead I altered the move a bit and had her use it during that fight instead. It seemed to work better there anyway, so that's what matters, right?