While the conventional marines remained at the car and laid down suppressing fire, Isaac and Reed wheeled around the outskirts of the village. They passed by quaint cottages with moss growing up the sides and moved through gardens filled with the remains of small autumn harvests. When a Restorationist appeared around a corner, Reed kicked a nearby garden gnome into his shins. When the rebel buckled, she followed up by jamming the butt of her gun into his face. The rest of his squadron had their backs to them, too busy with the firefight at the front of the village. With a firm finger on the trigger, Reed gunned all of them down, the strands of her red headband flapping in the wind.
Up ahead lay a small stream that bisected the town horizontally. To their right, the stream flowed into a meadow that dominated the foot of the hills, offering little protection if the pair decided to flank around the village even further. They would have to continue forward, across a small stone bridge over the stream that led to a little gravel pathway in front of an imposing estate. In the adjacent patio, Restorationist radio men had set up a communications network and a battery of mortars. Small whoomps cut through the air as they fired, their shells arcing into the hillside, right on top of Dai Hong’s estate. Fires spread through the air up there; the distant sounds of gunfire reached down to the village. The Restorationists were already hard at work trying to seize the Chairman.
A squadron of Restorationists crossed the bridge, unaware of Isaac and Reed emerging from the gardens right in front of them. Both of them emptied their magazines, the bullets tearing through their bodies and creating little specks of crimson in the wind. Isaac’s last experience with a gun in live combat came during the Melusline when he ineffectively fired a pistol mainly as a distraction; here, he just aimed and fired. His mind juggled with the cruel, impersonal nature of shooting a man from afar versus how his body only felt the recoil.
A few Restorationists escaped by slipping off the side of the bridge and landing in the stream below. When her gun clicked empty, and with the rebels advancing, Reed tossed away the submachine gun and activated her Rddhi. The upward surge of lightning temporarily distracted the Restorationists; she quickdrawed her sword and sent a slashing sound wave that knocked many of them into the mud. While she went to deal with them, a large Restorationist armed with a polearm and shield charged onto the bridge; Isaac fired on him, but the superpowered shield just knocked away the bullets.
Isaac tossed his gun at him for a distraction, and then activated his powers. Much like the earlier fight in Bill’s Tavern, the surge of energy swelled through him so much that some escaped as chaotic flares that struck the ground and bridge around him. Isaac emerged through the lightning strike of his own activation right in front of the Restorationist. He rarely trained against polearm fighters, but he knew his opponent possessed the advantage in range. To nullify that, Isaac fired an electric charge from a distance, but the shield knocked that away too.
A weapons combination of polearm and shield worked best in large formations of similarly-armed soldiers, but the confined space of the bridge provided an advantageous environment as well. With plodding, heavy steps, the man lunged and jabbed at Isaac, keeping him at a distance. The man had the environment to his advantage - it’s not like Isaac could get to his side on a footbridge - so Isaac decided to flip the board. Deciding to see how much power he gained after ascending to Circuit 2, he rumbled forward and punched the bridge itself, unleashing an electric charge right as he did. The stone crumbled and gave way and the man’s eyes widened as the bridge collapsed into the stream below.
Water splashed against Reed as she moved nimbly through the current. She slashed away a man’s arm, and then a sound wave sent a woman crashing into the sandy riverbank. Isaac, meanwhile, felt his shoes grow wet, but he used the distraction to get close enough to the Restorationist for the polearm to become ineffective. A punch to the shield yielded no results, just stingers up his arm, but the shield didn’t cover the man’s whole body. A well-timed kick wiped out his legs, and Isaac followed up with a punch that silenced him. A Restorationist appeared on the opposite riverbank with a submachine gun; Isaac threw the polearm through his stomach.
Time was of the essence. Now that he and Reed had activated their powers, Isaac could feel the approaching energy of Restorationist cultivator peeling away from the fight with the conventional marines to deal with them. Reed led the way out of the stream and onto the gravel path. Twirling the sword in her hand, she leapt over a brick wall and into the patio. Isaac followed her, knocking out a radio operator with an electric blast. The mortar men pulled out guns, but Reed silenced them with a sword wave.
Zhanghai language came out of the radio. Though Isaac didn’t understand its meaning, context clues suggested that, if the Restorationists were attacking Dai Hong’s villa now, junior Zhanghai officers would soon be reinforcing them - that is, if they weren’t up on the hillside already. The mortars had already been loaded; Reed removed the cloak off a corpse, wrapped it around the hot barrel of a mortar, and scooped it up like a toy with a mischievous grin on her face.
“You too,” she ordered.
Isaac raised an eyebrow. “The recoil on these things will be insane.”
“We’re insane too,” Reed merely answered. “We’re attacking an entire enemy force by ourselves.”
After hearing something like that, Isaac could only copy her. The bloody cloak he wrapped around his mortar muffled most of the heat, though it was a bit cumbersome to carry. A sniper shot suddenly cracked in the distance, the bullet smacking into the bricks only feet from Isaac. He had no idea where it came from, but the sound must've given the sniper’s position away to Reed's superpowered ears instinctively. She spun around and hip-fired the mortar in the direction of the village church’s bell tower. The explosion ripped apart the wooden structure; the recoil sent Reed flying into a brick wall. She landed roughly, in a daze, but no more sniper fire came.
Isaac helped her to her feet and the two made it around the estate, which turned out to be the last building in town before the hill rose. A road cut through the trees on the hillside, but the Restorationists set up another makeshift barricade filled with trucks and sandbags. A few more roadblocks appeared before the road disappeared around a bend. Nearby, a set of old stone stairs rose into the darkness of the trees; the Restorationists had thrown some sandbags at the bottom, and presumably blocked the way at the top, but they gave most of their attention to the road.
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The answer was obvious. With a nod, Reed dashed off toward the stairs. Before the Restorationists on the road could open up on her, Isaac pulled the trigger. The recoil was instantaneously, completely turning him around, but he remained on his feet as the shell slammed into the barricade. It hit the back of a truck, turning it into a mangled pile of steel surrounded by a mangled pile of corpses. The fuel lit up, sending a fireball into the sky. Even when he arrived at the foot of the staircase, Isaac could feel its lingering heat.
A sound wave blasted through the sandbags. As Reed ascended, Restorationists further up the stairs noticed her arrival and charged downwards, all of them armed with nunchuks. The Domino Sword tore through one of the chains and then through its wielder's stomach. When a rebel managed to wrap his nunchuks around the sword, Isaac sped past Reed and slammed a fist into his temple. Reed then plunged her swords upwards into the remaining man.
Gunfire ripped through the trees from the direction of the road, but they fired wildly, their targets now out of sight. The staircase must’ve been built long ago, as some of the stone chipped and cracked as the pair rose higher and higher. The staircase was quiet outside of that initial group, allowing Isaac to regain some of his energy. As he recovered, he realized with worry that he had lost Reed somewhere along the way.
Where is she? Did she get hurt?
He heard ragged breaths from behind him. Reed, green in the face, stumbled up the stairs, panting all the way.
“Oh man,” she huffed, resting an arm against a tree trunk. “Fucking...fucking stairs, Isaac.”
He tapped his foot, because they were kind of in a hurry and all, but then she projectile vomited into some bushes. Isaac just let out a long sigh. Reed caught her breath, glanced back at him, then spewed out a second round of this morning's breakfast.
“Okay, I’m good now,” Reed declared, the green disappearing from her face. With a wipe of her mouth, the pair resumed their advance as normal. Soon enough, they reached the top of the stairs. A barricade of sandbags had been erected across it, but the Restorationists manning it had their guns and focus aimed at the village. Isaac and Reed made quick work of them.
They knelt behind the sandbag to take stock of the situation. A large cul-de-sac lay between Dai Hong’s estate and the top of the staircase; burning vehicles and dead bodies were strewn across it, and the bloody fighting still continued. Corporate samurai rifle fire and cultivation blasts crossed blows with the Restorationists advancing up the road; men armed with swords were locked in combat, while others battled with superpowered fists. The estate loomed behind it all, its wooden face charred black from the conflict. Part of the estate’s roof had been caved in, likely from the mortars from earlier; Isaac guessed machine guns up there kept the Restorationists pinned on the road until they had been silenced.
“So, are we supposed to introduce ourselves or something?” Reed wondered aloud. “Dai Hong knows marine cultivators are coming-”
“Marines, hurry!” a disembodied voice suddenly barked in their heads. Isaac recognized the voice and its particular hint of a Zhanghai accent from the speech at the rail depot.
“This is a one way telepathic channel,” Dai Hong explained in a hoarse voice. “I normally use it for secret communications during industrial meetings, but it has its uses in situations like these. My samurai will send smoke in your direction. Use it as cover to arrive here.”
Behind sandbags in front of the estate, a squadron of samurai suddenly raised their open, sparking palms and let loose a torrent of smoke. Isaac and Reed dashed through it; Dai Hong urged them onwards. Despite the disembodied nature of it, Isaac could mentally understand the direction it came from. Right as the cloud disappeared, the duo leapt over a row of sandbags, landing amid the samurai. Isaac had fought, even killed, multiple samurai all the way back to when this whole thing started at Patuxet so long ago, but the samurai now looked at them like comrades-as-arms.
A caped samurai gave orders in Zhanghai to his subordinates, then motioned for Isaac and Reed to follow him. They crouch-walked back toward the estate, the sounds of battle escalating as the Restorationists renewed their assault. The windows to the estate had all been blown away by the battle. The trio stepped over them and arrived inside the estate.
At another time - perhaps even just a few days before this - it would’ve been a cozy sight. Rich wooden floors and rich wooden walls lined the massive parlor, which featured a fireplace and mounted bear head above the mantle. Rich carpets hailing from the desert lands between Rusalka and Zhanghai covered the floor, while a chandelier hung from the ceiling. But now the parlor had been converted into a makeshift fortress and hospital; men moaned from stretchers while others fired rifles through the broken windows.
The caped samurai brought them to the second floor. In a room filled with crackling radio equipment and scurrying operators, Dai Hong paced with his hands behind his back. A scar ran down his face, his Mandarin hat was now tilted slightly off his head, and he had traded his usual business garb for a samurai cloak like his men, complete with straw cape.
“Thank the spirits you have arrived!” Dai Hong exclaimed. “We’ve been pinned down for a day now, but with your strength, we can escape.” But then he realized there were only two of them. “Where are the others? Stockham only sent me two cadets?”
Reed jabbed a finger at him. “The State Police, Army, and Naval Police have been watching our movements. There are three brave men down there fighting for us as well. And before we forget, this is your fault in the first place. If you hadn’t smuggled in the atomic material or got cozy with the Restorationists, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
The samurai’s eyes widened at the disrespect shown to their boss. After a moment, Dai Hong held his head low in shame. “You’re not wrong. My predecessors here created this mess of corruption. Zhanghai sent me to clean it up. I genuinely want to help your country! Before the Unleashing, humanity built sources of infinite energy by using the atom. My government banned research of it in the homeland since it would threaten the monopoly our leader and his associates had on energy production, but here, I found the chance to turn my dream into reality.”
He shook his head. “But we lacked enough material and funds. The Restorationists supplied labor, cultivator energy, and smuggling money for the reactor. We were so close!”
“Slave labor,” Isaac retorted.
“Right once again,” Dai Hong admitted. “I thought the end justified the means. But the more careless you are with your means, the less guaranteed the end becomes. And now I’ve lost it all-”
A samurai burst into the room and relayed an urgent message in Zhanghai. From how animated the room became, it couldn’t have been good. Dai Hong and the caped samurai urged Isaac and Reed to follow them up to the third floor, right where the roof had caved in. Through it, up in the sky, a Zhanghai cargo plane rumbled overhead. Right as it flew over the estate, the back hatch opened up, and samurai gliders emerged.
“The junior officers,” Isaac realized. The reinforcements had finally arrived.
One of the gliders carried a woman with spiky black hair in a yellow qipao. Dai Hong narrowed his eyes.
“Daughter.”