Chapter Thirty-Two: Airstrike

I woke up to the view of a gray stone ceiling.

For a brief moment I thought I was waking up in my dream turret at the White Keep…only to remember an instant later that my dream turret was made of green stone, not gray. I was someplace else. I kicked off the covers, climbing to my feet. I wasn't tired or anything—I'm never tired when I wake up as my dream self—but all the same…sometimes I missed my old dream room on the golden moon of Prospit. I missed waking up to the soothing feeling of the light of Skaia shining through my windows. I missed getting high with Cruz, and flying through the spires and towers of the city below...

I wasn't sorry that I left the Golden Moon…but that didn't mean there weren't things I missed. The warm light of Skaia…Cruz and Tami…the White Queen… But the Golden Moon wasn't where I needed to be. I was needed here, on the Battlefield.

There was no door in my room; only a transportalizer pad sitting in one of the corners opposite my bed. I stepped onto the pad, ignoring the nausea that threatened to overthrow the current stability of my stomach and its contents as I suddenly found myself standing on another pad in a completely different room.

Yeah, I really didn't mix well with alternative forms of transportation, it seemed. Time travel gave me headaches, and teleportation made me feel sick. I emerged in a rectangular room with a row of identical transportalizer pads, probably leading to other rooms like the one I'd woken up in. I walked through the door and found myself in a corridor. There were a couple Prospitian operatives making their way through the corridor as I strolled in, and I grabbed the first one to pass me.

"Hey, uh, sorry to interrupt, but where the hell am I?"

The Prospitian stammered something about being honored to meet me, then something about an airfield, before scurrying away. Man, it got annoying how fucking shy some of the Prospitians could get with me… I mean, yeah, maybe I'm one of the most important figures in their mythology, but god damn! I'm not a fucking god, or anything; I'm just a somewhat-intelligent high-school student! If they knew anything about me, they wouldn't melt into jelly the moment I looked at them.

I chose a direction and followed the corridor until it emerged into a larger room with several more corridors branching out in two more directions. The fourth wall, however, contained the entrance to a stairwell. I seemed to be currently on some sort of sub-level, so I took the stairs up until I reached the ground floor.

Luck was on my side, today. I left the stairwell and walked into a larger corridor that seemed to run to the entrance of this facility…and I entered the corridor just as none other than Theo Gibbons walked past, accompanied by a squadron of Prospitian pilots—flight officers of the Royal Air Force, distinguishable by their circular gold and white insignias.

Theo's face split into a wide grin when he saw me. "Well, look who's finally awake!" he exclaimed, striding over and sucking me into one of his crushing bear hugs.

"Well, technically you should be saying 'Look who's finally asleep!' because this is my dream self-"

"Shut up, you literal motherfucker, or I swear to god I'll crack one of your ribs," Theo growled as he released me, letting me nearly sag to my knees, gasping for breath.

Yeah…to say Theo wasn't witty would be a vicious lie—he was wittier than most of the people I know, except for Tami. But I've spent most of my life honing the ancient and mystical art of sarcasm, and so I was always able to destroy him when we started making fun of each other. But then he would make up for it by simply giving up and pummeling me, which, unfortunately, no amount of snappy comebacks or retorts could deflect.

"Good to see you, too," I squeaked, getting back up to my feet and falling in step with Theo as he followed the squadron of pilots towards the entrance doors of this facility.

"Oh, you know I only inflict bodily harm on you out of love."

"Easy, there, Liberace-" I was cut off yet again, this time by Theo's fist. It didn't actually hit me, though; I was able to duck in time. Still, though…he didn't usually go for the punch until I'd needled him for at least five minutes. "Trying to punch me already? You're in rare form today, bro!"

"Just a lil' on edge, I guess," Theo shrugged. "Dersites launched an assault on our lines, yesterday…all-out blitzkrieg. Fuckin' miracle we didn't get steamrolled in the first hour…only reason Dersites aren't all over us is because the Prospitian Rangers were running deep exercises when the Dersites came at us, so we were kinda prepared for them…"

"How could they have surprised us that way?" I asked. "I mean, hasn't the White King been fighting them since…like…forever?"

The first of the Prospitian flight officers pushed open the entrance doors, letting daylight spill into the corridor. Theo and I followed the pilots outside, stepping onto what appeared to be a giant tarmac. There was a large field beyond the tarmac filled with various kinds of golden aircraft—fighter jets, gunships, transports, and the like.

"It's not so much the fact that the Black King is attacking," Theo tried to explain. "It's the sheer scale of the offensive, not to mention what he's attacking with…"

"What, how many fronts is he attacking us on?"

"All of them."

"Ah…that kind of attack…" I cleared my throat quietly as we followed the Prospitian pilots across the tarmac and into the grassy field. I decided to change the subject. "So, what is this place? Tried asking someone back in the base, but then he got all star-struck."

"This is the King's Airfield, the staging ground of the Prospitian Royal Air Force," Theo explained. "There's a division of soldiers that's in danger of becoming entrapped by the Dersite advance, so the White King sent me here to help 'em out, and I brought your dream self along for the ride…you chose the right time to wake up!"

"Always happy to help," I grunted. The pilots all stood in formation in front of their gunships for a few moments as their squadron commander gave them a quick briefing. I started to listen in on the squad leader's little speech, but Theo whistled to me, gesturing for me to climb into one of the gunships. These were smaller aircraft with rotor systems, almost resembling gilded Vietnam-era Huey attack helicopters.

I hopped into the troop bay—the side doors were already open—and sat on the edge, letting my feet dangle. Almost for the first time, I looked down at my shoes. They were like moccasins, and they were a neutral green. I'd never really noticed that they were the same color as the green of my dream rooms, which in turn was the same color green that Tami used for her PalHassle text. Yeah, the weird little things I pick up on, sometimes, right? I wondered if there was any significance to it.

Another reason I found I enjoyed being my dream self, other than how my head always felt so much clearer, was the fact that I was wearing clothes that weren't falling the fuck apart. My golden Prospit pajamas had held strong, so far, and they never seemed to get dirty or smell! Except, of course, for the brown dried bloodstains that spattered most of the shirt—a nice little remembrance of my attempted assassination at the hands of the Hegemonic Brute.

After about a minute, the squad commander dismissed his subordinates, and they broke formation. The pilot of our bird climbed in through the other side opening, the one Theo and I weren't sitting in. He wore a tan leather jacket, a greenish-gray helmet, and black aviator sunglasses. Yeah, some of the carapacian pilots wore sunglasses, ridiculous as it may sound. The insignia of the Royal Air Force was emblazoned on his sleeves—a circular gold patch, with a white pentagon in the middle—the pentagon bearing the eight towers of Prospit.

The pilot gave us a nod as he hopped into his bird, swinging himself straight into the cockpit at the very front. "Pleasure to be flying you," he said to us as he fired up the engines. "Do me a favor and man the door guns when we reach the kill zone, will you?"

"Glad to," Theo gave another one of his trademark grins.

"Well, he obviously doesn't have any problems talking with us," I remarked, standing up and holding onto one of the handles mounted above the opening to keep myself steady as we started to rise up into the sky. "I swear, whenever I tried to talk to the Prospitians back on the Golden Moon, they'd start freakin' turning into jelly!"

"Well, of course they did," Theo replied. "We're both figures of their mythology. Imagine if Achilles or Moses just showed up one day and came to your house. Even you would be at a slight loss for words."

"No, I think I'd just invite them inside and get them to take some shots with me."

Theo tried to raise an eyebrow and failed, so he just ended up raising both of them. "Taking shots with Moses and Achilles? Really? And how would you do this with your Sis around?"

I hesitated for a moment. "Okay, then I'll invite them over to Cruz's place to take some shots with me."

Theo glared at me. I met his gaze, and for a few seconds neither of us spoke. Then he finally said, "I think you've missed the point."

"No I got the point, I just chose not to acknowledge it."

"Why am I still friends with you?"

"If I were to wager a guess, I'd say it was for the sideburns," I grinned, cupping my hands behind the sides of my face, showcasing the less-than-awesome facial hair that extended from my ears down to the corners of my lower jaw.

We rose up into the air, leaving the King's Airfield far behind. As we neared the clouds, I was actually able to get a glimpse of some of the prophetic images they showed. It was a lot harder to see them from the ground of the Battlefield, for some reason…I could only see them when we were physically close to the clouds.

I saw a winged creature that appeared to be a pterodactyl, bearing Theo to the top of a strange, pillar-like mesa. There was a stone slab at the top with four spires sprouting up from all four corners, almost like bedposts, each spire capped with an orb of dark material. The pterodactyl laid Theo down on the slab, and the spires began to glow. I looked closer and saw that Theo was covered in blood.

In another cloud, I saw the White Keep…and it was in flames. I saw Theo again, this time standing in front of the gates. He was blazing with a bright blue light, facing off with someone else… I tried to see who he was fighting, but all I could see was darkness. Shadow.

In a third cloud, I saw Cass, dressed in sleeveless robes of purple and black, standing on a balcony in a dark, quiet purple city, watching as the asteroids of the veil and the distant point of light that was Skaia grew smaller and smaller, eventually vanishing completely. She turned away from the balcony. She was crying.

In a fourth cloud, I saw Skaia, in all its glory… But as I watched, several dark shapes crept over it. Gradually, the clouds of Skaia turned gray and stormy, and the light of the epicenter of our incipisphere went dark.

I had to look away…that last image had been too disturbing. I glanced over at Theo, wondering if he'd seen those images as well. He had been looking out the other side of the gunship, however. He had a slightly troubled look on his face which he promptly wiped away when he saw me looking at him. I wondered what he'd seen in his clouds.

I didn't get the chance to look at anymore clouds because our pilot sent us speeding forward. The clouds zipped on past; some of them were showing their mysterious images, but we were moving too fast to see them. Probably for the best, if you ask me…

"So, how're you and Cass doin'?" Theo asked me.

That kinda caught me off-guard. I tried my best not to show my surprise at the question, but I don't know how successful I was. "Uh… I mean… I dunno," I managed to get out. "I haven't talked to her in a long time…haven't seen her since before Day One, and she's never been on PalHassle whenever I log in."

"After all the trouble I went through to set up a date between you two lovebirds, you haven't even bothered to talk to her?" Theo exclaimed, his look of amusement morphing into a glare. "Dude, you suck!"

"What the fuck am I supposed to do, fucking invent telepathy and talk to her with my mind?" I snapped back. "I don't share a dream planet with her, you know! And I haven't exactly been lying around all day with an abundance of free time, either—I'm fuckin' busy! I've got three tribes of psychotic consorts to deal with, and-"

"Okay, okay!" Theo held up his hands in mock surrender. "Didn't mean to open Pandora's fucking Box of Feels, there; I was just curious! I mean, she does like you, and after all that shit with Anna last year… Don't fuck this up, okay? Don't you dare fuck it up! Talk to her when you get the chance."

While we were on the subject, I decided to do a little sleuthing of my own. "So… I remember hearing certain rumors about Cass and my Sprite…are they true? I mean, he's been with her since Day One."

"I don't know anything about that," Theo replied. His face and voice betrayed nothing, but I think he answered a little too quickly. I didn't press him for answers, though…even if he did know something that I didn't, it was something I wouldn't want to know in the first place. Best to leave it be, I guess.

The trip lasted maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. The Battlefield was a big place, but these gunships were able to move pretty fast. It wasn't long before I noticed that we were starting to lose altitude, descending towards the black and white checkered earth below. I leaned out the side of the gunship, using my Aspect to keep the wind from tearing at my eyes and face, and I was able to see smoke in the near distance.

"We're getting close to the kill-zone, Heroes!" the pilot shouted back to us from the cockpit. He had to yell to be heard over the din of the engine. "Deploy the door guns!"

The door guns were large, bulky energy turrets that were probably the Prospitian equivalent of an M60, or something along those lines. They were attached to metal limbs which secured them to the troop bay of the gunship. Right now, while not in use, they were folded up against the wall. I grasped the door gun on my side and flicked off the locking bolts, allowing it to slide over to the door opening. The turret was still facing up, however, so I searched around the connector that secured the gun to the metal limb, finding another pair of locking bolts.

When I loosened the bolt, the door gun was released from its upright position and fell forward, locking into a ready position, hanging out of the side opening and aiming towards the ground. I seized the grips of the door gun and swiveled it from side to side, getting a feel for its weight. I found I could also move it up and down if I loosened the second locking bolt, allowing for three-dimensional maneuverability.

"You know what we need?" I shouted over to Theo.

"What!"

"We need to find a way to blast Fortunate Son, bro!" I grinned. "Feel like I'm in fuckin' Vietnam!"

"Don't got my ipod speakers, man, sorry!" Theo murmured. "Guess we could always sing it ourselves?"

"We're doing it, man! We're making this happen!"

We were beginning to soar over Prospitian camps and troops movements. The ground below was pockmarked as a result of artillery and aerial strikes—probably incurred within the opening hours of the Dersite advance. We continued to descend until we were flying low to the earth, maybe around a hundred feet, maybe a little less.

Theo started laying down the bassline for Fortunate Son, by Creedence Clearwater Revival—your quintessential war song, usually always played in 'Nam war movies when the rugged, jacked up soldiers came roaring into the jungle on helicopters, ready to bring the pain to Charlie. I couldn't get enough of it!

"Alright, weapons free!" the pilot hollered back to us. "If it's black, kill it!"

I spared a moment to glance at Theo, but he caught my gaze and flipped me the bird. "Shut the fuck up and sing!" he yelled.

Well, I was more than happy to oblige. "Some folks are born, maaaade to raise the flag!"

"Ooh, they're red white an' blue!" Theo chimed in.

We flew through a column of smoke and emerged over one of the most chaotic battlegrounds I've ever seen…and yeah, I really haven't seen very many battles, but I always had an idea of what a battle like this was supposed to look like. I've watched Band of Brothers, I've watched a lot of shit…and nothing I've seen on TV looked remotely like this.

I got ready to fire the door gun as we approached the fighting. "And when the band plays HAAAIL to the Chief! Ooh, they point the cannon at—FUCK!" I ducked instinctively as a hail of energy bolts peppered the side of our gunship, just a few inches to the left of my head.

Theo had ducked as well, reacting as the pilot veered suddenly off to the left, avoiding the remainder of the weaponsfire. He glanced back over to me, straightening back up. "Okay, no more singing?"

"Yeah, no more singing," I nodded in agreement.

The ground we'd flown over had been slightly fucked up by artillery, but the area we were approaching now, beyond the Prospitian lines, was fucked up beyond all recognition. All-out FUBAR. It looked like something straight out of World War I, where both sides would pound the same strip of land with artillery for days, weeks, even months.

The Prospitians weren't using full trenches, though. They had dug shallow trenches and foxholes, using the earthen defenses in concert with manmade—carapacianmade?—fortifications. Energy shields that looked like they came straight out of the Halo franchise, wooden and metal barricades, as well as a fair amount of barbed wire.

I could see Prospitian soldiers in brown coats and light gray helmets hunkered down in the foxholes and trenches, trading fire with the advancing Dersite commandos. There were machinegun emplacements scattered along the line and mortar teams situated further back, and I could tell they were slowing the Dersites down…but not stopping them. There also appeared to have been light anti-armor emplacements set behind the Prospitian lines, but they had all been destroyed.

I was beginning to understand how crucial this air support was to the Prospitians below.

And as for the Dersites… I could see formations of commandos slowly advancing in concert with obsidian tanks, marching in step with each other, their shields locked like a Roman legion. To say they weren't taking casualties would be a lie, but they were faring really well, considering the amount of firepower being poured onto them. Their shields, while appearing normal and metallic, seemed to be able to deflect the energy bolts of the Prospitian weapons with varying amounts of success.

There were more commandos who did not use the Roman-esque swords and shields—much more modern counterparts, wielding energy rifles that fired white projectiles, unlike the Prospitian weapons which fired red energy. They were dressed entirely in black armor—helmets, boots; everything. Wouldn't want to fight these guys in the dark…

For some reason, the Prospitians below had very little armored support, just a handful of tanks, so I was in awe of how they'd managed to hold out against the forces arrayed against them—they must have been fighting nonstop since yesterday.

I pulled the triggers of the door gun and opened fire. There was surprisingly little recoil, though the noise was almost deafening, and I had to take care not to let my arms brush against the sides of the turret—the heat was almost unbearable. The door gun itself fired giant slugs of crackling red energy at such a high rate that it probably would've looked like a light show in the dark.

There was a faint whooshing sound as the pilot fired rockets, or missiles, or something along those lines. He then brought us down super-low to the ground to perform a strafing run on the Dersites below. I could only do so much to aim while firing from the side of a rapid-moving aircraft, but the door gun's rate of fire made up for the severe drop in accuracy.

I aimed for the tanks. The bolts from the Prospitian soldiers' semi-automatic energy rifles were not powerful enough to do any damage to the tanks, but the massive amounts of FUCK that this door gun doled out were heavy enough to tear those Dersite tanks apart.

The pilot took us higher into the sky and brought us around for another strafing run. This time, with most of the Dersite tanks in the area neutralized by the other gunships in the Prospitian air squadron, I focused my door gun's fire on a formation of Dersite melee commandos that were getting dangerously close to the Prospitian lines. While their shields were energy-resistant to a degree, they could not easily stand up to firepower of this door gun's caliber, nor that of the Prospitian machineguns. That was why they moved in concert with the tanks, but without the tanks…and also considering the fact that we were fucking them from behind, where their shields weren't pointing…between Theo and myself, we really messed that formation of Dersites up.

The heavy energy bolts melted right through their dark carapacian 'flesh', and I could see a fair amount of blood and body parts flying about… I did my best not to watch too closely, for my stomach's sake. If Theo and I hadn't stopped singing Fortunate Son when we had, I would have stopped singing now.

We repeated this process three or four times, coming in hot and wrecking a lot of Dersite shit, buying our Prospitian boys in brown some breathing room. Then, in the middle of our next pass, the pilot broke off our attack, suddenly. "Hold onto something, Heroes!" he shouted back to us. "We've got incoming Dersite bandits!"

"Bandits?" I didn't quite understand, but Theo was quick to explain.

"It's what they call enemy aircraft," Theo clarified. "You know, bogeys are unidentified aircraft, bandits are enemy-"

"Got it, thanks!" I cut him off, holding onto one of the handholds with one hand as we rapidly gained altitude, rising up and away from the fighting on the ground. Our pilot brought us up into the sky and we quickly found ourselves flying in tight formation with the other Prospitian gunships. I was actually able to trade a thumbs-up with the pilot of the gunship to our right, which was the side on which I was manning the door gun.

I leaned out of our gunship again, trying to get a glimpse of what was coming our way. There was another gunship in front of us, so I couldn't really see anything. After a few seconds of steady flying, our formation loosened, and the pilot sent us into a bit of a dive. I gave up trying to keep track of where everyone else was flying and instead just concentrated on keeping on the lookout for anything non-Prospitian.

One of the Prospitian gunships suddenly howled right over us, approaching from the left. I watched as it flew away from us, not realizing that it was under pursuit until it exploded, suddenly, in a blinding haze of white flame. A Dersite aircraft—one that looked similar to our gunship, though considerably less advanced—flew right over us as well, following the same path as its recently-destroyed target. I brought the door gun around and unloaded on the Dersite bandit, but it banked sharply to the left before I could land a hit.

It wasn't a problem, though… Our pilot brought us about and sent us forward after the bandit, whereupon he ended up destroying the enemy aircraft with the gunship's nose cannons. The wreckage of the bandit was still falling through the sky even as we flew right through the point in the sky where it had been destroyed.

When the pilot brought us back around, I could see the rest of the Prospitian gunships mopping up the last of the Dersite bandits. I could plainly see that while the Dersites seemed to hold the distinct advantage when it came to weaponry and ground forces, the Prospitians had the superior Air Force.

I never found out what exactly had hit us. Maybe it'd been one of the remaining Dersite bandits, coming after us because we'd drifted from the rest of the Prospitian gunships. Maybe it'd been a Dersite tank that had squeezed off a lucky shot, or an anti-aircraft emplacement that we hadn't known about. Maybe an enemy commando had managed to hit us with some kind of rocket launcher. I don't know.

And in the end, it really didn't matter what hit us. All that mattered was that we had been hit. I nearly lost my grip on the door gun and went flying when our gunship lurched suddenly. Alarms started blaring from the cockpit and our gunship began to spin all over the place. Just looking out the side doors was enough to make me even more nauseous than I already was.

"We've been hit!" the pilot yelled back to us, and I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to stop myself from screaming back, 'No shit, Sherlock!' "Our rear stabilizer's shot to hell! Best hold onto something; we're going in hard!"

Theo and I shared a quick glance. In that moment, I knew he was thinking the exact same thing I was thinking. "Rock, paper, scissors!" I shouted over to him, holding out my fist.

Theo gave a single nod, holding out his own fist. We started shaking our hands in rhythm with each other. "Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot!" we both called out at the same time. I flattened out my fist into paper, but Theo had chosen scissors, winning the match. "See you groundside!" he grinned, turning from me and jumping out the side opening.

As for me, I threw myself across the troop bay and pulled myself into the cockpit, where the pilot was desperately trying to reestablish some semblance of control over the crashing gunship. Trying, and failing. Before he could even see me, I wrapped my arms around the guy and hauled him out of the pilot's seat.

Ignoring the pilot's protests, I focused my Aspect and thrust my palm upwards. There was a screeching, cracking sound, and the entire glass window that surrounded the cockpit was blown free by my Vis. I then simply jumped up with the pilot still in my grip, hanging in midair as the gunship continued to plummet, eventually crashing to the earth below in a fiery haze.

This pilot was incredibly lucky that I was my dream self, at the moment—I could use my Aspect to fly when I was awake, but it was so much more natural and effortless when I was my dream self. I was much more likely to fuck this up if I were awake, is what I guess I'm trying to say.

I flew through the air, praying the whole time that no one on the ground would spot me and start trying to shoot me out of the sky like our ill-fated gunship. I also tried not to pay attention to what lay below, either—the Prospitian air squadron had wreaked some serious havoc on the Dersite advance. The Dersites were stalled at best, not stopped…but still. It was pretty ugly down there.

The wind smelled terrible. An acrid, burning stench filled the sky…burning oil, rubber, burnt flesh, blood. I flew as fast as we could, dodging the thick columns of oily smoke. There was still a thin layer of smoke that had permeated throughout the entire sky, however, and my eyes started to tear up and sting before I remembered to use my Aspect to protect them.

I couldn't use the Force Aspect to protect my mouth, however, and it wasn't long before my throat started to burn. I fell into several coughing fits during my flight, but nothing too serious, thankfully.

After what felt like an hour, though in reality it was less than two minutes, I found myself flying over the Prospitian lines. Some of the soldiers cheered for us as we soared over their heads. I glanced down and saw that they were abandoning their foxholes and trenches, leaving the defenses.

Well, no, not abandoning…it was too organized, too orderly. It was a tactical retreat.

I got us over the front lines and allowed myself to descend, aiming for what looked like some sort of forward command center, set less than a quarter-mile behind the foxholes. As we neared the ground, I was surprised to see Theo waiting for us. Good thing he hadn't deviated from following a straight path back to the lines, else we would probably have ended up separated by a mile or two.

I set the Prospitian flight officer down gently before I let my feet touch the ground. "Pleasure to be flying you," I grinned at the pilot.

"I'll tell others of your bravery," the pilot assured me.

"Yeah, uh…yeah, you do that," I decided I should mention the fact that I saved him because I was the one who lost Rock, Paper, Scissors to Theo. Still, though… I always lost Rock, Paper, Scissors to Theo. Six or seven years of failed Rock, Paper, Scissors matches spoke for themselves. I dunno if I'd taken this to account when I challenged him, back in the gunship…hey, maybe there was a little bit of Hero inside of me, after-

Bleh, never mind; I can't finish that sentence without throwing up.

When Theo and I made our way into the command post, we found all the operatives packing up, closing up shop. "Anyone in charge here?" Theo spoke up.

No one stopped what they were doing, but a short, broad-chested Prospitian dressed in a brown trench coat and an officer's cap stepped through the throng, offering us both a quick salute. "The Knight of Force and the Thane of Breath, unless my eyes deceive me?" he asked.

"Nope, no eye-deceiving goin' on here," Theo replied. "The White King sends his compliments."

"I'm the battalion commander, here," the officer said to us. "You Heroes best be on your way; we're falling back to the tertiary line! That airstrike gave us the time we needed to start pulling our boys out-"

"Sir!" The operative manning the last remaining wireless rose to his feet suddenly, beckoning the battalion commander over to his station. "Sage Company Commander on the channel."

As Theo and I headed back outside, I was able to catch snippets of the conversation between the battalion commander and his subordinate officer…but there was one word I heard multiple times.

Behemoths.

"Holy son of a fuck, look at those things!" Theo exclaimed, pointing towards the front lines. I stepped out from behind the command post tent and nearly shat myself right then and there.

There were no less than half a dozen…things…advancing towards the retreating Prospitians. They loomed well over a hundred feet into the air. They had four massive legs with giant, almost hoof-like feet. They had elongated bodies…and their heads resembled those of horses. That was it, they looked like massive, robotic, black horses.

"Knights…" Theo murmured.

I have no idea where they came from. The Dersite must've had them in reserve, behind the hills in the distance, saving them for when the Prospitians could be utterly crushed. With the brown-coated soldiers no longer manning their defenses, they suddenly found themselves to be highly exposed and vulnerable…certainly in no position to repulse an attack on such a scale.

The first of the retreating Prospitians were making their way through this camp, and we could see the panic in their faces as they kept glancing over their shoulders, constantly looking at how much closer the behemoths were looming. I don't know what kind of weapons those knights had mounted on them, and I really didn't want to find out.

I grabbed Theo by the sleeve. "How the fuck are we gonna stop those things?"

"I have an idea. C'mon!" Theo shrugged me off and summoned the power of his Aspect. A stiff breeze swept through the command post as Theo launched himself into the sky, floating on the wind. I flew up after him, allowing the weightless, feathery feeling of dream self flight to overtake me.

"What are you doing?" I called out to Theo, hovering up alongside him, ignoring the energy bolts that were beginning to sear through the air around us.

Theo was scanning the ground below, searching for something. It didn't take him long to find it, and he pointed. "There!" he shouted, making the breeze carry him down towards what I saw was a group of Prospitian tanks, retreating along with the infantry. All I could do was follow him, still unaware of what exactly he was planning to do.

Theo made landfall directly on top of one of the tanks. The Prospitian armor was retreating backwards, with their fronts facing the Dersite advance. Tank armor was weakest in the rear, so I guess it made a lot of sense for them to retreat in reverse. I hovered in the air above Theo, but I didn't actually land. I was curious to see what Theo would do.

My friend crouched down, banging on the tank's hatch. After a few moments, the hatch was unsealed, and a grimy, soot-covered Prospitian stuck his head and shoulders out of the cupola. "What is the meaning of-"

"We gotta take those big fuckers down!" Theo shouted.

"We tried!" the tank commander answered, clearly trying to maintain the façade of patience. He wanted Theo off his tank, but wasn't quite ready to shout at a Hero. "Their armor is too strong; our rounds cannot pierce it!"

"So aim for the knees!" Theo gesticulated wildly, almost on the verge of climbing down into the tank himself.

"Now look here, I will not be given orders by anyone other than my superior-"

The tank commander was not able to say anything else, because Theo seized him by the shoulders and yanked him out of the cupola, jumping through the open hatch into the tank below. I have no idea what he was doing in there—all I could hear was Theo shouting at the top of his lungs, interspersed with the softer, more chattery tones of the Prospitian crewmen inside. My friend must've been able to convince them to follow his advice, however, for the tank's main cannon started rising up until it was aiming straight at one of those behemoths.

I plugged my ears with my fingers just before the tank's main cannon fired. I mean, I've never exactly been around a tank when it fired its main cannon, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to tell me that it would probably be loud as fuck. Which it was—even though I covered my ears, I still wanted to curl up and die for a few minutes to relieve the ringing in my head.

I looked up and saw the round fired from the tank impact one of the advancing knights' knee joints. The behemoths had nearly reached the Prospitian foxholes and trenches, by now. Bits of armor and other bodily matter went flying, and the leg visibly wobbled, but it was still relatively intact.

"Again! Hit it again!" I heard Theo howl.

The tank opened fire a second time, striking the behemoth in the exact same place. Second time was the charm, in this case. The knight's knee joint was blown to smithereens. Suddenly destabilized by the loss of one of its limbs, the behemoth keeled over to the side and fell, slamming into the ground in an explosion of fire, metal, and bits of melted, charred black carapace.

The message must have been relayed to all the other armored units in the area, because next thing I knew the rest of the horse-like behemoths were getting absolutely pounded all over their legs. They opened fire with their weapons, which were similar to the energy cannons that the bishop had attacked Theo and me with, back at Outpost 34-W. Giant beams of destructive, crackling white energy roared into ground. Some of them struck the retreating Prospitians—wherever they hit, there was nothing left afterwards.

Still, though…while the tanks were not fast enough to save those unfortunate Prospitians, they were fast enough to save everyone else. One by one, the advancing Dersite behemoths had their legs blown off and crumpled to the ground. New columns of smoke began to waft into the air.

Theo hopped out of the tank, ignoring the shitstorm of profanity being leveled at him by the tank commander he'd displaced. The tank commander did not remain very long, though. He climbed back into his tank and resumed the retreat before Theo got it into his mind to not take any more crap from him.

I floated back down to the ground, falling in step with Theo as we followed the tanks. Before long, the Prospitians retreating from the foxholes and trenches caught up to us, and we were all pulling back in a giant group.

I didn't like being on the retreating side, and it was putting me into a bit of a sour mood. As we followed the tanks and Prospitian soldiers, though, I couldn't help but crack a grin at my friend. "You got that idea from Halo 3, didn't you," I gave a slightly accusing chuckle.

"You know me so well."