Wren sat in a building near the edge of the dome, on the fifth floor, looking out the window at the white wall of the dome before her.

There had been a bit more discussion with the law enforcement. The colbber was going to amass the information Wren had given her, and pass out the important information to the others.

There was some debate about what to do with Wren.

"I want to help," Wren said, getting up. Both of them stared at her, and she almost sat back down, but she continued. "The day of. I want to help."

The elf narrowed his eyes. "Well I don't trust you."

The colbber nodded. "We should lock you up. Would be what you deserve."

"You're right. It is what I deserve," Wren agreed.

She swallowed. Her lips felt dry. She just barely let her tongue touch them. Seemed she was on her own to stand up for herself again. She didn't even have Fleck giving her confidence this time, for obvious reasons. But she wanted to help. The idea of sitting and stewing in more of her guilt while everyone else fought was sickening.

"But I can help the day of, that won't happen if I'm locked up," she continued quietly. She turned to the elf. "And, if you can't trust me with that, can you trust me to stay in prison? Do you think I couldn't break out, if I really wanted to?"

The elf huffed. "Well, how dare you bring logic into this whole thing."

The colbber just looked between the two of them. "You're kidding."

But he was not. So that was how Wren found herself sitting in a building, with someone from the law enforcement office sitting further back in the room, mostly obscured by shadows at the moment.

She doubted that was the only way they were keeping an eye on her. But hey, maybe it was. Maybe they were stretched too thin, preparing for the attack. Maybe she vastly underestimated their intelligence and rightful lack of trust.

'Maybe you should go back to not worrying about it.' They had enough to worry about very soon.

Wren could sense the bile in Fleck's thoughts. Not that she blamed him. He should have that. Possibly didn't have enough, if you asked her.

Oh Fleck had plenty of bile alright. He was angry, and resentful. And he could sense Wren's self hatred, sticking to him and dragging him deeper down like mud in a swamp. And that did not help with the resentful feeling.

There was no escape from it. He'd probably be angry on his own, but no matter where he was, he couldn't escape Wren's anger, her emotions splashing into his no matter the distance.

But he didn't want to be near her right now. That would probably be worse.

The dragons had had duties assigned to them too. He and Moon would watch the barrier tomorrow, specifically an area with one of the entrance gates. He went there, checked it out, got a feel for the location. Someone at the gate was now doing the security checks they hadn't before. Now maybe Fleck would just stay there, be ready in the morning.

Moon was going to join Cooper, but that was fine. She could help her rider. Fleck would probably be bad company right now. And he didn't really want any.

He'd wait here until tomorrow morning. Seemed to be what Wren was doing.

Her friends were busy, and she didn't want to face them right now.

Fleck was basically ignoring her. She tried to basically ignore him too. She hadn't done that very often, and it was easier when neither of them had much going on, but she tried.

She walked to the window and peered down again. There was a round road going around the inner edge of the dome, curving with it. She could see where that street connected to others, or at least one other, heading deeper into the town. Angling her head, she could see the road going to the left, passing buildings and a park. A familiar park, where she and Eddie had enjoyed some time above ground before the bullies ruined it.

Wren felt a little nauseous. She moved away from the window, sitting back on the abandoned desk she'd been on for a while now.

She pulled the red stone out of her pocket. It glinted a bit where the light outside hit it, but in this dark room, it looked a lot like a normal rock.

The elf at law enforcement had called it an enhancer. Pauth had implied she had an enhancer. When she connected to the power of the universe she could tell it did have some magic. Not much. If she was going with the light metaphor, it was a firefly amongst "real" lights. But it was easy to will some of her own magic in, like she and the rock were opposing sides of a magnet.

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So no denying it, it was an enhancer. And she'd picked it out without being connected to the power of the universe. It had called to her, like Ava said it would.

She lowered the rock with a sigh, looking at the non-view out the window. But she was still holding the rock, her enhancer. She could rub it with her thumb and feel the grainy surface.

She must've used it while escaping. It was the only way Pauth would be able to tell a spell was cast. And something had happened to Anvon when he grabbed her. If she could figure out what, she could use it again. So, that was something to focus on the rest of the day.

Not that there was much day time left. She'd spent most of it sharing any information she had. And arguing her case for being here. No. It would all be starting very soon.

~~~

An explosion hit the wall the next day. It was early in the morning. Civilians would still be a sleep, though Wren was pretty sure they'd tried to keep civilians away from the dome, even if they weren't evacuated in entirety.

Wren was not asleep. She'd been restless last night, struggling to get any sleep. And when she did succeed, Fleck didn't. It was no surprise for her, or any of the law enforcement, when the attack hit.

The first attack created tremors in the dome, and the ground. She could hear something rumble against the wall outside. But it held. Rasha and the more experienced healers had set up magic shields last night. And there were the clerics.

The second hit likewise had no effect. Then it was quiet for a moment.

"The man outside's stopped throwing projectiles."

That was the colbber woman currently waiting with Wren. There were some cameras on the outside of the dome. Not many, but enough a colbber could presumably see what was happening through them. And the one throwing projectiles was presumably Murv. He was one of the few whose power was projectiles, not touch based, and who could've made such huge impacts.

"Someone new's coming up," the colbber informed her. "Coming right up to the dome this time. Looks like a colbber woman?"

'Arra.'

'Probably.'

Wren turned to the colbber she was with, with bulging eyes she knew could be intimidating. "Is there a way to stop her from touching the wall?"

"Working on it."

But she either didn't react in time, or it didn't work. The wall burst into pieces, the same way Wren's power worked.

There was still some magical defense, and she could see the clerics down by the dome tense up, grab their holy symbol, and in one case she could even see a set of eyes glow white. Seemed they were keeping the barrier up.

But there were only three clerics in this area, and multiple cultists attacked at once at this point. Anyone with projectile powers, or with the power to blast things like Arra. Oh, and Pauth slipped into the shadows, and came out on their side of the dome. He was still missing an arm, but other than that he seemed fine. But the three clerics weren't the only people on ground level. Pauth quickly had to dip out again as multiple people shot bullets at him. The colbber Wren was with shot from the window as well.

In theory, more people could come to the breach, but probably not more clerics. The town wasn't a major one. How many clerics could they get on such short notice?

Wren had about two minuets, maybe three, to wonder these things, and take stock of the situation. She got to watch the cultists barrage the forcefield. She was aware of Fleck and Moon coming this way, to join the fight.

Then one of the clerics stumbled back, and Murv launched another meteor attack.

"Get down!" Wren warned.

She didn't wait for an answer. She simply launched herself at the colbber, slamming into her midsection. The two fell towards the ground just as more of the dome blew to pieces, large chunks of rubble falling into the building.

She felt something hit her shoulder. It was heavy enough she felt something go wrong with her arm. She kept her mouth closed, but you could still hear the pained noise coming from her. But she didn't think anything was broken?

True. Breaking a shoulder was one of the worst things you could do, and Fleck was pretty sure it was white out pain.

She'd been hit with something wood. Maybe part of the window frame, or a ceiling beam. Something was wrong with her shoulder and arm. The left one wasn't responding properly. Her fingers just twitched and she couldn't lift her arm the whole way. But she hadn't broken it. She was still functioning.

The colbber had been hit with either the brick from this building's wall, or the concrete from the dome. She was still alive. When they hit the ground, Wren on top of her, she felt her breathing. But she wasn't awake. That much was clear when Wren awkwardly pushed herself up, with only one arm.

Wren went to the window, which was now a gaping chasm in the wall.

It was chaos. The 3 meteors had left streaks of gray and brown ruble along the ground, where they tore up the streets entirely and ripped through part of the buildings. Some of those buildings, like the one she was in, were still standing. But others had fallen in already, or looked like they might, more pieces dripping off.

Two clerics were still up and trying to heal people from the attacks. But Wren couldn't see the third, and people also had to keep the cultists away from the injured.

Law enforcement fired at the cultists, but if the cultists didn't go down, they had powerful magic they could retaliate with. And most of the law enforcement didn't have anything to defend against that. They fired guns and then pulled back when a cultist reached out too close.

The elf magic user was using his wand to create shields between the cultists and others, but if the clerics were having trouble a magic user certainly would too. Rasha was helping him, but she was still very inexperienced, and Wren felt bile in her throat at the idea of her getting hurt.

It seemed the cultists had a destination in mind. They were cutting through the street with a purpose, not put off by any resistance. The only good news was, this single minded task was probably the only reason things weren't worse. They weren't going too far off their path to attack. They were definitely doing more damage than they strictly needed to though.

Wren thumped her palm against the jagged brick wall, where the hole ended. Time to get down there and help. She let the view disappear, turning around and dashing for the stairs.