…

Central Park

…

Gregor soared up and up into the air above New York City on Neptune. The city sprawled out in every direction, a sea of golden lights and endless symphony of sounds. Neptune's ears tucked back towards his head. "Overlander… this is… much."

Gregor gave him an affectionate pat on the head as the bat banked around. "You won't have to endure it for long. Focus."

Below, tens of soldiers and their bonded fliers poured out of the Central Park entrance. Gregor felt a flit of nervousness as he watched Luxa and Aurora soar out into the open air, but he tore his eyes off of them. He had to locate explosives. His eyes searched the ground as he recalled the plan.

"It's simple," Gregor said. "They won't have too many soldiers by the entrance because they don't want to give away their presence to the general public. However, they will have fail safes nearby in case of war. The explosives to seal the entrance."

There they were. Ten large crates, stacked on top of each other near the entrance, marked as "EXPLOSIVE," were near the entrance. Only a few soldiers in black stood by them, looking stunned as the Regalian army filled the sky.

"What will the rest of us do as you capture the explosives?" Alexander, a Regalian captain, asked.

"Distract them, confuse them," Luxa ordered. "These guns… they are more powerful than I ever could have imagined. We cannot fight them. We can only hope to draw their attention."

Gregor nodded. "Luxa's right. You all will provide cover for me while I sneak close and take out their guards."

Gregor and Neptune dove, shielded by the dark night sky, dipping underneath the trees, hurtling directly at the guards' backs. Too late, they began to turn. Gregor was already upon them. He ran the first one through and jumped off Neptune, allowing the bat to grab the second by the head and drag him up into the air, flipping him and flinging him to his death.

The third and final guard got his gun up right as Gregor threw his knife. A brief spray of bullets into the night, hitting nothing. The guard fell to the ground, knife buried in his neck.

"We'll need to open the crates," Gregor said. "The explosives will be inside. Each flier will grab some of the explosives in their claws and fly back down the shaft. As you return, stuff them in crevices you see along the shaft. Do not put too many in one place. We want to collapse as much of the shaft as possible."

"Won't they explode on us?" a flier asked worriedly.

"No," Gregor said. "That's where I come in. Once you and your bond place your explosives, return to Regalia. Do not fly back up. I will be the last to descend, and I will light the fuse of the highest explosive, which should set off a chain reaction for all of them. Get as far from this shaft as possible. Is everyone clear?"

Everyone looked at him. Here he was, the Warrior again. No, the Protector. He looked to Luxa, and she nodded firmly to him, fierce love shining in her eyes. It was time.

Gregor began to open the crates, and fliers swooped in, grabbing their loads, darting back towards the shafts. "Hurry!" Gregor said anxiously. He could already hear the sirens in the distance. If reinforcements got to the park before they were gone, it would be a slaughter. Their guns would tear right through them.

Luxa landed right next to him. "If you are last, I will be second to last."

Gregor was horrified. "No, Luxa, you must return. You of all people cannot be risked on this operation."

She stared at him stubbornly. "As long as you remain, so shall I."

He shook his head frantically. About half the crates were empty now. "Luxa, I—" A burst of gunfire cut him off and Gregor was moving before he even processed it. He tackled Luxa to the ground, and blood showered down on them.

He coughed, the dark sticky blood in his hair and all over his body. He rolled off of Luxa and he froze.

Just meters away was the mangled form of Aurora, nearly unrecognizable from the amount of bullets in her. Her wings were fully extended as she had been shielding them from the Overlanders.

A couple hundred feet away and fast approaching was a team of Overlander soldiers in black with AK-47s.

Luxa's face was ghostly, a crumpling wreck. "AURORA!" She screamed, swinging her sword wildly toward the approaching soldiers. "I'LL KILL YOU!"

Gregor's heart broke. She could hate him later, he decided, as long as she lived. Acting quickly, he brought the pommel of his sword down on the back of her head, knocking her unconscious. He caught the attention of a passing flier. "Take her!" he screamed. The bat obeyed, abandoning its payload and darting towards the shaft.

More bullets blazed up into the sky, and fliers dropped like stones. Gregor's breath caught as a stream of bullets narrowly missed Luxa's head, her body hanging from the flier's great claws.

"RETREAT!" Gregor bellowed, waving frantically at the sky. "RETREAT!"

The soldiers were closing in on him, he realized. He darted towards the Central Park entrance. Bodies littered the ground, but not as many as he had feared. The retreat had been well underway when the reinforcements had arrived. Neptune swooped down and grabbed him in his claws. Gregor swung himself up to Neptune's back and surveyed the battlefield.

It was a mess. In the distance, he saw streams of American soldiers entering the park. They had less than a minute to be gone and detonate the bombs. Gregor eyed the pile of crates. There was still one full crate left. Assuming the shaft was filled with the rest of the explosives, if he could get the crate near the entrance…

"Let's drag it towards the entrance. I'll light it," Gregor said.

Neptune dived without a word, hooking the crate and dragging it with all his might, flapping his powerful wings to propel him towards the cave. Gregor suddenly realized the soldiers were almost upon him, but weren't firing. It was because of the explosives.

Gregor pulled out his lighter and lit it, catching the attention of the nearest troops. "JUST LEAVE US ALONE!" Gregor bellowed. "ALL WE WANT IS PEACE!"

The soldiers didn't seem to hear him, approaching slowly, guns raised cautiously.

"Neptune," he whispered. "Dive." And with those words, he flung his lighter into the box of explosives right as Neptune dived into the shaft.

A burst of gunfire. Screams, a roar of explosion. Gregor could feel the heat burning the back of his neck as he and Neptune nosedived through the shaft. "Faster, faster," Gregor muttered, wind whispering through his hair. Behind him, the explosion continued to crescendo, following him down into the darkness. He'd done his job, this shaft would be rendered unusable from the explosions. Now he had to survive its collapse.

The bottom of the shaft slowly pulled into his vision. The shattered Overlander camp remained, and the bodies had not been removed. They were about to get the cremation of a lifetime.

In some of the finest flying Gregor had ever seen, Neptune pulled up at the last moment, not losing a second of speed as he went from plummeting endlessly to surging through the tunnels towards Regalia at top speed. Nausea sloshed in Gregor's stomach as his body jerked back and forth like a ragdoll, barely hanging on to Neptune's back.

Suddenly, they burst out into a large clearing. On the other side, Regalia. Out into the open air, out into safety they went. Neptune rose as high as he could immediately, trying to get out of range of the tunnel. Not even two seconds after they left the tunnel, a massive plume of fire came hurtling outwards, barely missing the back of Neptune, the tunnel collapsing in on itself.

Gregor looked back at it. "Well, no one's getting through that," he said, raw adrenaline running through his veins.

"Gregor," Neptune said slowly, "what is that?"

Gregor spun back around towards Regalia, and what he saw made his blood grow cold.

…

Regalia

…

Helena watched in horror as Ripred the rat rushed out alone to meet the cutter horde.

A boy came rushing up to them. "Mareth, he'll die! Someone has to help him!"

Mareth held the boy back as the retreat continued all around them. "He is a rager, Hazard. He will hold the bridge."

Hazard shook his head furiously, tears welling in his eyes. "You know what Ripred always said. He cracks at 400 to 1. That… that…" he choked. "That's a million to one."

"I know," Mareth said distantly. "But he'll buy us enough time."

The boy began to wail. "No, not Ripred too! Not Ripred!" Two guards came up and dragged the boy away, kicking and screaming.

Mareth shot Helena a long glance. "If you want to live, follow us at all haste, and don't look back." With that, he moved away, following the organized chaos of the retreat.

Despite his words, Helena spared one last long glance over the Regalian wall. Towards the rat, standing alone on the bridge protecting the roaring river encircling Regalia. His back was straight, but he was too far away for Helena to see his face clearly.

Her eyes focused on the cutter horde, climbing over each other, ballooning out towards the rat's position. Fear rose in her throat. How could anyone stop that? The death? The suffering? The cave flickered in the back of her mind. She had to run, but she didn't know how.

Then, the horde collided with Ripred, and its momentum came to a standstill. Bodies, blood flying everywhere. A whirl of motion, a tornado of violence that almost seemed to be turning back an unstoppable tide.

Was this what it meant, to live? To stare death in the face and still fight? To defy the odds for one more breath?

Energy filled Helena. "I did not know you… but thank you," she said, feeling her fear finally flee her. Watching the hero rage with all his might. "I will not waste this life." Without another word, she turned and ran.

…

New York Times Building

…

James looked directly into the camera as instructed, making no effort to remain composed or hold back his tears. On the way over, he had thought of so many ways to give this speech in his head. Instead, the words came tumbling out without a plan.

"I know many of you listening now are frightened. What are these strange creatures pouring from the Earth, and what do they want with us? Why are they here?"

James took a deep breath. "Have you stopped to ask yourselves: what if they are scared of us?"

He looked dead in the camera. "Your government has attacked these people without provocation. They have lived for centuries in the earth beneath us, aware of our existence but not attacking once. All they wanted to do was to be left alone, but when your government discovered them, that was not an option. Your government wanted assimilation. Annihilation."

"Who wants that? Who wants to lose who they are?" James said.

Deep beneath his feet, Luxa sobbed as she came to, hanging loosely from the claws of an unknown flier headed for the Fount. "Aurora," she moaned, the loss shredding her heart to pieces.

"Who wants to fight? Who wants to die rather than live alongside what they love?" James demanded.

A soldier, missing everything beneath his belly button from the explosion, dragged his bloodied body along the ground, losing energy and collapsing beside the shredded body of a great golden bat. "Mother," the soldier gurgled before his eyes glazed over forever.

"Why can't we just have peace?" James screamed. "Our families? Our loved ones? What's worth more than that?"

Ripred had lost track of how many he killed. Two thousand? Three thousand? It wasn't enough, and he was slowing. He was bleeding from a dozen places. He didn't dare check behind him to check the status of the retreat, but he knew no one was coming for him. His mind summoned an image he hadn't in many years.

Silksharp.

He smiled, let out a guttural cry, and forged forward with one last burst of energy, spinning and slashing as only a rager could. As only one who had loved could.

James calmed, his breath coming out in short bursts. The producers behind the bright lights and cameras looked at him with some concern, but they kept the video rolling.

"I also thought the Underland was something to be destroyed, something to run far away from at first. How could I not? I was alone in a place far beyond my understanding."

James smiled. "So let me help you understand. Almost eight years ago, I fell into that dark place beneath our very feet…"