After having killed the general, or whatever the rank of that human was, the titled blades rushed out of the gym while back in their weapon forms. They couldn’t waste any more time. Leaving through a window on the opposite side of the building, they floated down and continued following the path they set up during planning. The entire city had been evacuated to a few bunkers that were used during rampages. Anyone who was outside was a member of the human army, which made things easier for the titled blades.

First, they crossed the streets, with Viper and Crimson working as lookouts. Jumping from alley to alley, slowly getting closer to the power plant in the center of the city. They were still several blocks away from it and, to make matters worse. People started shouting. It seemed like they had found the dead officer.

‘That’s a problem,’ Lurize sighed as they had to wait behind a large garbage dump in one of the alleys.

‘What do we do now? The patrols are increasing,’ Crimson asked as they hid from a small group of humans who were searching for something. They were talking about finding someone, but at the same time, they didn’t know who.

Nimbus looked up and around before pointing to a structure a bit to the north, ‘Everyone remembers the blueprint of the city, right? Isn’t that building the one with a walkway just by the park?’

Everyone turned and paused for a moment.

‘Yeah. I think that’s the place,’ Crimson nodded.

‘You are thinking about taking the path through the park?’ Viper turned to the Sentinel.

‘That’s what I thought. A lot of vegetation, easy for us to hide, and the shade from the trees will stop us from being seen by anyone who might be working as a lookout.’

‘I like that, let’s go. We can’t stop to come up with various plans,’ Lurize nodded.

Viper and Crimson took the lead, making sure the coast was clear again before the group dashed out. They went inside the building and Nimbus pointed out through one of the windows on the side. However, instead of arriving inside an office or something like that. They found themselves in a hallway. One that looked very much residential. It showed that this wasn’t an army camp, or a place made to be protected. All around them were apartments, homes, places where families would gather, have meals. Children ran around, played, learned, and grew. Everything was looking well kept. There were no signs of fights, or anything in this place. In fact, the entire city was in perfect condition. Not completely pristine in an eerie way, but the good condition that people would see in a well-kept town.

‘This kind of sucks,’ Crimson sighed.

‘Yeah. Let’s just keep moving,’ Nimbus nodded.

The four of them quickly weaved through the corridors until they found the walkway leading to the other side of the street. It was completely covered from above and there was a tinted glass covering the sides of the path, with only its upper half being completely transparent. This allowed them to move through the walkway while being almost invisible to anyone from the outside.

Reaching the next building was easy, and without any problems. But once they got there, things changed. As the group moved towards the staircase, they came face to face with a patrol of 3 humans. Viper and Crimson flew at one of them, going straight for her neck and cutting it open before she could even react. But the other two were some steps behind. That gave them enough time to respond to the attacks.

Lurize jumped, turning into a zweihander, and going straight for the second human’s chest. He had been aiming for the heart, but his attack was parried by the man. Without missing a beat, Nimbus rushed to the last member of that team. The bladed tonfas spinning around in an attempt to cut the man into ribbons.

‘Don’t forget the noise. The longer this takes, the worse it will be for us,’ Nimbus said as the tonfas had to pull to the side, narrowly avoiding the human sword. This small combat was already echoing in the long stairwell.

‘We won’t,’ Lurize replied, having to stop his body from slamming against the human’s sword again. Instead, he pivoted and came down towards the man’s legs.

Viper and Crimson were moved to help the Royal Tutor, but the body of the woman they had just killed collapsed into the steps and started to roll down. Not wanting to make matters worse, Nimbus jumped and transformed into his titled form. Using the wings in this narrow staircase wasn’t easy, but he was nimble enough to catch the woman and still continue his battle against the last member of the patrol. However, there was a big difference between continuing a fight and winning it.

The second human was a much better swordsman than the ones they faced during the invasion. He was easily keeping the two blades away and was already trying to go on the offensive. It didn’t help that his partner was already on the floor and rage fuelled his moves. He was able to parry the attacks of Lurize, Crimson and Viper and was slowly getting the hang of the fight, becoming a bigger danger by the second. While Nimbus, who was just a few steps down, tried to reach the bottom of the stairs while still holding on to the corpse of the woman. He wanted to drop her on even ground so they wouldn’t have to worry so much about the noise anymore.

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Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. Nimbus was able to reach the bottom of the steps, but when trying to get his footing, his foot was caught on the dead woman’s hair and he slipped. Not only that, but his fall also pushed him back, making his back hit the railing, and his drop to the ground. The human lunged at him with a downward swing, but the Sentinel simply returned to his weapon form. Escaping the strike but letting a loud clang echo through the staircase.

‘Shit,’ Nimbus cursed.

‘Crimson, take him!’ Lurize ordered, rushing towards the human engaged with the Sentinel.

The daggers flew towards the man, who was still holding his sword, ready for an attack. What he didn’t expect, however, were the twin daggers he was fighting against turning into half Naga creatures, each holding a pair of daggers. This was a copy of Hera’s [Venomous Arsenal], but they couldn’t replicate the insane scaling the weapons of the Empress had. Instead, they had a watered-down version of the skill that worked mostly to supplement their fighting style.

The extra limbs and strange visages of the Spymasters were enough to break the flow of the human who started to lose ground, and soon, was hit several times by the twin half Nagas. The man yelled as his sides were caught by a [Grasping Strike] from Viper that bound his movements for a couple of seconds. Following that up, Viper used [Bloody Claw] empowered by all the blood around them and cut the man’s head clean off.

At the bottom of this flight of stairs, Nimbus was still trying to finish his fight. But he made sure to stay in front of the human, blocking and parrying the strikes while trying to create openings when possible. Not that he was actually going to use those opening. The Sentinel already had noticed Lurize coming and was doing that, only to make sure the man wouldn’t notice.

In a matter of seconds, Lurize jumped towards the man, who had his back turned. The zweihander pierced through the human’s chest, coming out on the opposite side. Using that moment of surprise, Nimbus also struck. Aiming at man’s neck, he cut it open with a double slash and held the body down before it felt to the ground.

‘That could’ve gone better,’ Viper groaned from the top of the stairs, where he and crimson were pushing the body up to make sure it wouldn’t go tumbling down the stairs.

‘Yeah, but it worked. Let’s keep moving,’ Lurize ordered.

‘Sure. But we might need to pick up the pace. This place is not so safe anymore,’ Nimbus nodded. But as they were about to reach the ground floor, a noise caught their attention. It was coming from under the last flight of stairs.

Without missing a beat, the four of them, in their weapon forms, flew over, ready to strike at whoever was trying to hide. But to their surprise, it wasn’t a member of the army. Doing a bad job of vanishing under a table was a little boy wearing a blue jumper and holding a toy of a man with wings and a bird helmet tightly with both arms on his chest. He saw the four weapons aimed at him and his eyes started to water.

Nimbus quickly turned to his titled form again, the bipedal griffon suddenly appearing in front of the boy, “Hey there, little buddy. How are you?”

The boy continued to stare at the Sentinel, his eyes still watering, but seeing the griffon seemed to calm him a bit. “Are you hiding from your parents?”

The boy shook his head.

“From the army?”

The boy shook his head again.

“From us?”

He nodded, shaking a bit.

“That’s ok. You are being very brave right now. Do you know where everyone went?” the boy paused and stared at Nimbus. Realizing he was getting the wrong idea, “I’m not asking you to take us there. Don’t worry. I just want to bring you to your family.”

Jack frowned and held the toy even tighter, “That’s a lie. You want to kill them.”

“Who told you that?”

“My mom, my dad, the tv.”

“I see.” Nimbus paused, unsure what to say. He couldn’t bring himself to leave the boy here. Not only he was very close to several dead bodies, but when the Alliance started their attack, he could be caught in the crossfire.

‘We are not leaving him here, are we?’ Crimson asked.

‘Of course not!’ Lurize replied.

‘I agree. I just need to think about how to make him trust me. If we tell him to just run, he might get hurt. Also, don’t show up now. I don’t think more people will be better,’ Nimbus added.

‘Ask if he knew anyone from the alliance. And tell him that his parents are wrong,’ Viper suggested.

Nimbus looked back at Jack, “They said anyone who is not a human wanted to kill you?”

Jack nodded.

“And did you know anyone who wasn’t a human before that?”

“I did...”

“Who were they?”

“Vishan, a friend from school. And Miss Plar. She is the teacher.”

“Do you know where they are now?”

Jack shook his head, “They left.”

“And if they were here. Do you think they would try to kill you?”

Jack paused and looked deep into Nimbus’ eyes, “No. They are nice.”

“I’m nice too. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“But my mom and dad said you are bad.”

“I understand, but that’s not true. I’m not saying they are wrong, just that this is all a big misunderstanding. Do you know what that means?”

Jack nodded, “When I say pop and you hear poop.”

Nimbus chuckled, “Exactly. That’s a misunderstanding. It’s the same thing, it’s just a lot bigger,” he paused and looked outside. There was a window to the left they could use to get out of here. Viper and Crimson were already there, scouting the area, “So, buddy. There is a lot going on right now, and I don’t think it’s safe for you to be here. Can I take you to a safe place?”

“Are you not going to hurt me?”

“I won’t, I promise. Tell you what, if we see someone who you trust, or someone else that you think will take you to the right place, you can scream and go running towards them. I will not do anything about that. Aside from running away. Ok?”

“What if you are lying?”

Nimbus smiled, “What is his name?” he pointed to the toy.

“Capitan Hawk.”

“Does Captain Hawk lie?”

Jack shook his head, “No, he is a hero!”

“Well. I’m trying to be a hero, too. I even have wings and I tried using the helmet, but,” Nimbus knocked on his beak, “My nose is too big.”

That made Jack laugh, and after a moment he glanced back at his toy, before turning to the Sentinel again, “Do you promise? You are not going to hurt anyone?”

“I promise I’m not going to hurt anyone when I’m with you. Even if they try to hurt me,” Nimbus replied, knowing that the rest of the titled blades were not a part of this promise. Just in case things went south.

Jack nodded and raised his arms as if asking to be picked up. Nimbus did just that and quickly left the building. This mission had just become several times more complicated, but it was for a good reason. Even if they were at war, acts like this were what made the Alliance different from the humans. They would never use the life of a child just to gain an advantage.