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Evanescent Shift
Forty-Four: The Wall and The Shield

Forty-Four: The Wall and The Shield

A chilling wind swept across the Barrens as 4,000 soldiers stood side by side, divided into two sections of 2,000 soldiers. The majority of them were volunteers from the Anti-Imperialists of Mars, but the principle combatants were the Black Shield and Free Army of Terra. As such, the banners of all three groups whipped around at the rear of either formation. It was incredibly cold despite the lack of snow and ice, and Stefan understood why the Titanians chose places like the Glacial Lands and Barrens to build their primary northern establishments. It was because those areas most closely resembled the conditions on their homeland. He shivered, but it was not the weather that enticed him to do so. There was a gap between the sections that Ivan and Goran led respectively, giving a large amount of space for the primary actors of the raid to stand in the middle—Vigdis, Vi, Valto and Stefan.

“There will be several kinds of facilities at the main site,” Goran Habich’s voice blared as the bearded middle-aged man held a megaphone to his mouth. “Storage, messes, barracks, a motor pool, and a power plant. A short distance away is a landing site connected to it by a small road. Our primary concern here is with the main site where the weapons we must activate are located. To explain this in further detail, I will hand it over to Vigdis Maas, Chief Engineer of the Black Shield and Free Army.”

He meant what he said literally, passing down his megaphone to a soldier who then passed it to another soldier, repeating until it ended up in Vigdis’ hands. Holding her head high, she delivered the information she had collected through her decade and a half of intel and experience.

“The weapons that Mr. Habich alluded to are called the Intercontinental Projectile Lasers,” she said. “For the sake of this mission we will call them the IPLs. They are located within the storage buildings and automatically protrude through the roofs when they are powered on. But to power them on, there must first be access to the power plant. Now, this will no doubt be an arduous task as they will have some kind of eyes on the site, either guards or cameras. That is why you will be needed to divert attention away from my team and I and take down those eyes. Our intention is to completely occupy the site before the ground forces arrive. I have faith you will all make that happen. Anything you would like to add, Ivan?”

A raised arm from the very front of the formation confirmed Ivan’s intention, so she passed the megaphone through the hands of multiple soldiers to make it happen.

“Do as you were trained, and do it till the end,” he said in a simply yet powerful statement. “Godspeed to all of you.”

Ivan looked across the vanguard of the formation and saw Goran’s head nod.

“All units, charge!” Ivan cried, and the sea of men and woman began to wash over the area of Barrens between Depot 011 and the point at which they were staged about a half league north, a wave made up of the black of the Black Shield, the white of the Free Army and the orange and red of the Anti-Imperialists that would not stop until they reached their destination. Most of them moved on foot, although Ivan, Goran and Vigdis and her bodyguards rode on horseback. The lack of Reserve-powered Craft in the convoy would make them impossible to detect until they covered the horizon from the Depot’s point of view. As they got closer to the site, however, they noticed something was different.

“Halt!” Goran cried, pulling the reins of his horse to bring the beast to a stop. Ivan was on the same page and mirrored the older man's movements. Vigdis, although she wasn’t so close to the vanguard, noticed the soldiers to her left and right slow down and she ordered her bodyguards to stop their steeds along with her.

Instead of standing before a deep ditch surrounding spread-out, low-rise buildings, what welcomed the combined forces of the Black Shield, Free Army and Anti-Imperialists was a wall that spanned what had to be the entire perimeter of the site, rising 10 feet above the ground.

“These walls… they weren’t here when I and the Free Army visited this site. That was 19 years ago,” Goran commented, placing a hand on the wall. “This place has been abandoned for over four decades and no one should’ve touched it besides maybe a few guards at most.”

What’s more was that the walls didn’t display the architectural prowess of the most intelligent Titanians. It was as if the ground itself had been raised to make the construction. No, that was exactly it. The ground was elevated to make a thick earthen ring around the depot through unknown means.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Damn it,” Ivan groaned. “Hold on. I need to contact Jay.”

Everyone stayed silent, and for 20 seconds, every soul present was on edge. Would they be forced to turn back and abandon their mission?

Stefan’s arms and torso began to feel warm. The Reserve in his veins was pumping hard. What did that mean? Was his own body trying to tell him something?

“Proceed at all costs, Jay says,” Ivan said, replacing his communicator into the saddle pocket as quickly as he could. “We need to break down a part of this wall and quickly.”

“Quickly?” one young soldier near the vanguard groaned. “How many feet thick is the wall?”

“This is going to take hours,” another sighed. “We don’t have demolition tools.”

A sea of annoyed murmurs rippled throughout the stalled battle formation. They hadn’t come all this way just to be stopped and slowed. Ivan and Goran dismounted their horses immediately and chipped away at the packed-earth walls, one man using his battle axe to cleave through as many inches of material as he could, while the other man swung a Lucerne hammer forward. Slowly more and more soldiers joined them, but even at that rate it would take a very long time to take down any significantly sized section of the wall and allow the thousands of warriors to filter through unimpeded.

“Vigdis,” Stefan said, disembarking his steed and approaching the woman. “I want to go up front. I can’t help but shake this feeling that I can do something about this.”

“Are you sure?” Vigdis inquired.

“I’m positive.” Stefan crossed his arms.

“Move along then, lad,” Vigdis said, a smile appearing on her lips. “But remember to return to me.”

He has Kal’s headstrongness, she remarked as the boy sprinted towards the vanguard. That’s her boy, alright.

“Ivan, Mr. Habich, I need you to let me do something.” he said as the two men cut away at the surface of the walls, having managed to go through only a few inches of earth.

“What is it, buddy?” Ivan asked, his eyes still fixed on the task ahead of him. “You wanna help? Grab a blunt edged weapon and get to swinging.”

“I think there’s a way I can open up this wall without one,” Stefan said, confident in his own presumption. “I’ll need you to move everyone from the walls.”

“And waste time when we have a solution already available to us?” Ivan sighed.

“I suggest we give the boy a chance, young Ivan,” Goran’s gravelly but gentle voice spoke. “I saw what he was capable of at Shargara.”

“Well… you’re not wrong,” Ivan admitted, before gripping his battle axe in one hand and letting it hang at his side. He turned around and slapped the wall behind him, prompting all soldiers to cease their movements. “Everyone, I need you to move away from the wall as much as you can. Quickly, get to it!”

“We may have another way to get this wall down!” Goran added.

Stefan smiled. He stood immediately before the wall and let instinct take over. He felt a rush over Reserve flow down his arms and to his palms. He extended his arms and faced his palm outwards. Despite this, nothing happened. The wall didn’t shift or sink. It remained as it was, being battered by the wind.

Come on, Stefan. You didn’t feel you could do this for nothing. You know it can happen.

The boy shut his eyes and tried to concentrate harder. Instead of framing the Reserve as traveling to his hands, he decided to visualise it as moving away from his core.

He opened his eyes. Still, noting. Not even a grain of soil had come off.

Whoever built this wall, he thought to himself again, must’ve been one cheeky bastard. You can do this.

“Alright, show’s over,” Ivan walked over to him, placing a strong hand on Stefan’s shoulder. “Wrap things up, Stefan. Nothing’s—

The area was suddenly lit up by a ball of blinding purple light, and moments later, the sound of hundreds of pounds of compacted desert soil crumbling to the ground. Gasps seized the lungs of every soldier present as they witnessed the wall somehow being turned into nothing by the boy simply facing his palms towards it.

“Did that kid just…” one soldier whispered.

“He did. I think he just did.” Another added.

“Oh yeah, way to go, Stefan!” another cried, pumping his fist in the air.

“Stefan! Stefan! Stefan!” many of the soldiers cheered. Stefan felt butterflies in his stomach.

I did it, he told himself. But more importantly, it only worked after Ivan touched me. So does that mean… I still don’t have the strength to use a power like that on my own? But the fact that I even did it is…

“Alright,” Goran cried. “Stefan, you did well, boy. Now head back. On a count of three, we rush in.”

Stefan hurried back to his horse before the incoming stampede could hinder his return.

“One… two… three! Rush, rush, rush!”

From what had once been the mess for enlisted officers, three pairs of eyes gazed out of a window.

“Your walls were a good idea, Delta,” Alpha said, most of his body below the ledge of a window except for his eyes and the top of his head. “Still… who could’ve brought that section crashing down so quickly? I doubt it’s more than one person. Echo, step up.”

The hulking young Titanian’s eyes were thirsty for blood as he saw hundreds of bodies pouring in through the gap in the wall.

“Aye, Alpha.” he smirked. His Berserker state was brewing, ready to be fully unleashed.