“Where’s a healer?! She needs medical attention!”

“All the healers are at the medical ward!”

“Fucking…”

Umara grit her teeth and scooped Tana up, running through the gates and heading to the medical ward herself.

Tana’s body practically burned Umara’s arms, her spasming muscles and pooling sweat threatening to make her slip at any second. Umara tightened her grasp. Tana had pushed herself well past her limit, and with every agonizing groan she let out, Umara became more pissed off.

The details about that patrol were off. Patrols weren’t sent out just to get slaughtered, and they weren’t supposed to go anywhere near established Scourge encampments.

The only reason they had gotten chased was because they had come across one of those encampments. The issue was that it should have been known about, and their patrol shouldn’t have gone anywhere near it.

Umara got Tana to the medical ward, and she was quickly taken to a room.

As the healers got to work, Umara spoke.

“I’m going to go talk to someone. Focus on resting.”

“Don’t…”

Tana let out a word, Umara waiting for her to finish.

“Don’t… kill anyone…”

“We’ll fucking see.”

Umara left with that, marching off to the headquarters building.

Every patrol team was given a route to patrol. There were many different routes and a team could get assigned any of them. Messing up a patrol route, or a patrol team getting wiped out, was cause for suspicion. That meant that the base’s intelligence was either off or incomplete. Either way, someone was at fault, and it sure as hell wasn’t Umara.

She threw open the doors with pressurized air, marching through the desks of summoners and intelligence agents.

“Hey lady-!”

“Fuck yourself.”

She blew aside a pissed intelligence agent before kicking open the doors to the war room.

There were several people inside, none of whom were more powerful than her. So she marched straight to the map at the front, all the summoners backing away, except one.

Umara recognized the pair of dragon wings of a Brigadier General. But after one glance, she ignored him and looked at the map.

She quickly found where her route went, and sure enough, there was a marking at the halfway point of their patrol route.

A Scourge encampment. The sight of it made her bristle.

“Hey, how long have we known about this Scourge encampment?”

She pointed to the marking, looking at the Brigadier General who lounged back in a chair, his Glimmers prim and proper.

He had yet to say anything because he looked terrified. Umara generally tried to respect summoners because of John. He, along with people like Maxwell, had proven to her that not all summoners were weak, and there were some worthy of her upmost respect. Thus, she never treated them poorly. She had even made a few friends within the intelligence division.

But the sight of this pitiful Brigadier General made those thoughts evaporate. She couldn’t give a damn that she was three ranks underneath him.

After not receiving a response promptly, she asked again, facing the entire room.

“How long have we known about this encampment!?”

“I-It was discovered two days ago!”

Another summoner answered her, pissing her off even more.

They knew about it, and they were sent straight into it.

Question was, who assigned that patrol route?

“Who the fuck is in charge of overseeing patrols?! You! Who is it?!”

She grabbed a summoner and yelled in his face, the man covering.

“I-I don’t know! I’m just in charge of the archives!”

“Then fucking point me somewhere.”

“...”

The summoner was silent, pointing to the Brigadier General.

So Umara dropped him and snatched up the Brigadier General, yanking him out of his seat, causing him to yell back in fright.

“Don’t you dare-!”

“Shut the fuck up! You knew about that encampment. Are you the one who formed the patrol routes?!”

“I-I-”

“Yes or no?!”

“N-No! My Colonels are in charge of those menial tasks…”

“Then point me to them. Now.”

She stared into the man’s soul, his Aura fully exposed underneath her own. She knew he wasn’t lying. But he wasn’t completely guiltless either.

“Colonel Derrick… He should be in the recreation center…”

“Anyone else?”

“I believe he collaborates with someone, but I don’t know who-”

“Whatever.”

She dropped him, the man falling to the floor as she marched out.

From headquarters she stormed into the rec center. There, she found the Glimmers of a summoner, everyone in the facility turning to stare at her as she grabbed his neck and pinned him against the wall.

“Colonel Derrick! I hear you’re the one who formed the patrol routes. So tell me, why the fuck were we sent straight into a Scourge encampment?!”

“Fuck!”

Derrick choked underneath Umara’s grasp, clawing at her arm a few times before suddenly throwing out a punch.

Umara dodged before tossing her head forward, slamming her forehead straight into his nose and shattering it.

“Aaaghh!!”

“Don’t you dare fucking touch me! Now answer my fucking question!”

She grabbed him by the hair again before slamming him on top of a table.

Her voice fell, yet her whispers were like screams through the dead silent rec center.

“My patrol team, my entire platoon, was just wiped out. Now, I’ve come back to find that our route went straight into an encampment. So tell me why that is, right now, before I scalp the hair off your head.”

“Wait!”

There was a shout from nearby, Umara looking up to find a knight, Authority 6, looking at her with his hand on his sword.

He froze for a second when he saw her bloodied face, but recovered fast enough to talk normally.

“What’s going on? You said your enti-”

“I don’t recall speaking to you. Mind your fucking business.”

“What…”

The knight was stunned as Umara brought up a knife to Derrick’s face.

Then, with fury, the knight drew his sword. Right when he did though, there was an explosion in front of his body that launched him backward, his body crashing into the opposite wall and cracking it.

Umara looked up, another drop of blood going down her nose.

“I told you to mind your fucking business.”

With those words she yanked Derrick off the table and dragged him out of the rec room.

Once outside she backhanded him across the face, sending him to the floor before flourishing her knife again.

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“You still have yet to answer my question, Derrick. I suggest you hurry up.”

“Ah!”

Derrick recoiled when a ball of fire appeared in front of his face. The hairs on his cheeks and chin curled away from the fire, charred.

When he backed away though, he found he was surrounded by these fireballs, all of them emitting scalding heat.

“Y-You can’t kill me…”

“You wanna test that theory? With every second of your silence, I’m becoming more and more suspicious. Now, I’ve only heard of Scourge sympathizers, but I’m open to the thought that this may be my first time meeting one. If that’s the case, then killing you might just get me promoted instead of punished. So, convince me you didn’t intentionally send us into a death trap.”

“Wait!”

Derrick shouted when a fireball moved closer, but Umara continued anyway, the fireball coming in contact with his boot and melting it around his foot.

“AAAAHHH! W-WAIT! Wait! Please! I didn’t know there was an encampment!”

“Did you form the patrol routes?”

“Y-Yes!”

“So did you or did you not know about the encampment?”

Umara asked again, her Aura suddenly bearing down around Derrick.

And he answered.

“No! I swear I didn’t know!”

“... You fucking…”

She clenched her fists. It was a lie.

He knew.

Suddenly, she jumped forward and started pummeling the man. He tried to defend himself, but she stabbed his arms with her knife when he put them up before continuing to bludgeon his face.

“Stop! What are you doing?!”

There were shouts nearby as she beat his face into a pulp. She did so as long as she could before a knight jumped over and grabbed her.

“Fuck off!”

“Why are you beating that man! Stop struggling!”

The knight held her arms, and she futilely struggled against his grip. She suddenly felt very vulnerable. No wonder John was so afraid of knights getting close. If they got a hand on you, they had the ultimate power. This was her first time being restrained by one like this, and she actually felt a bit scared.

So she cast another spell and raised her barrier, the spell exploding right between her and the knight while pressurized air sliced into his hands, loosening his grip, the barrier protecting her at skin level nand redirecting the pressure toward him to send him through another wall.

More blood dripped from her face. She dropped into a stance as more people approached to restrain her as the knight did, but more cautiously this time. Umara didn’t let them.

She dodged one before casting a spell at the foot of another, throwing him off balance. She did the same to the first knight when he recovered, blasting him through the wall of another building before defending herself against several others who ran over, most of them knights, yet all of them being pummeled by her precise spells.

Then some warlocks appeared, all of them casting defensive spells as other armored guards made their way over in defensive formations. Umara was quickly surrounded, though not after blasting a few more people away, all of them at least Authority Six, a few at Authority Seven.

“What the hell is going on?!”

Umara felt her own Aura get forced back into her body — but it didn’t crumple, which gave her some satisfaction — as the full force of three highly-developed Auras descended upon her. They were too powerful to resist, despite Umara having met stronger Auras before.

Two Brigadiers, and a Marshal — a friend of her mother’s, the knight in charge of Nagalev Bastion.

The Marshal looked at the bodies scattered around, all of them injured, as well as the bloodied summoner. Then he looked at Umara, who was still on edge.

“Talerria, you better have a damn good explanation for all this.”

“... That summoner, Colonel Derrick, just killed my entire platoon.”

“And… how did he do that?”

“He set up our patrol route to roll right into a known Scourge encampment. My knight and I barely escaped with our lives, chased by a Corrupted all the way back to the base. Just ask the people who went and chased it out by the western gate.”

“I didn’t know!”

The summoner yelled through a swollen face. Umara gritted her teeth.

“He knew! He’s lying about being oblivious! It’s clear as fucking day if your Aura is any better than a child! It’s a lie, or gross fucking negligence! They knew about that encampment for TWO DAYS! So either he set us up, or his incompetence just killed a hundred people on routine patrol!”

Silence descended on the surrounding soldiers. The Marshal stood there, flicking his gaze between the two parties.

Then, he turned and nodded.

“Arrest Colonel Derrick and Master Sergeant Talerria. Secure the archives as well for investigation.”

“You’re arresting me?!”

“Stand down, Umara!”

The Marshal yelled, Umara staggering under the oppressive power. She was already at the end of her rope.

“You just went on a rampage and injured a dozen knights! And beating summoners to a pulp is not how we handle things here! You will abide by martial law. Do not embarrass yourself or your name any longer!”

“...”

Umara’s face twisted for a few seconds before she fell to her knees. Her overexertion hit her like a truck, her vision spinning and her skull feeling like it was going to crack.

The guards couldn’t even get to her before she passed out.

……

…

“Enemies in front!”

“Light them up!”

Pollux commanded, the knights on the Steed turrets activating the barrels and hurling fireballs into the small Scourge horde in front of us. It looked like we’d have to cut a path to the Treehouse.

Thankfully most of them were weak. The Scourge had numbers, but humanity was graced with higher-end combat power. The side that won would be determined by who could use their strengths better.

I took a peek outside before settling back down, rifle in hand. I’d just wait until I had to do something. Nothing around us was a threat I had to worry about.

There was a bit of turbulence as we rode, especially when we rammed through a few monsters or their corpses. Otherwise, things were generally calm as the gates opened for us to roll through.

It was noon, and the Treehouse was being besieged from two sides. I could hear the constant explosions, warlocks on the walls hurling spells as the hordes below. The slightly different bark and delayed explosion of turrets rang with equal regularity, the knights manning them with unceasing enthusiasm.

I jumped out of the Steed once we stopped, taking in a long breath of cold air before bending my neck and popping it. I did not enjoy long road trips in the back of an armored vehicle.

“Cooper! No time to lose.”

Pollux waved me over. I silently followed as we went straight to the headquarters.

It was time to gather the troops.

The two of us entered a busy logistics room full of desks. Bypassing all the moving summoners, we entered the war room and found who we needed.

Polly’s second Colonel besides Colonel Henrik, Colonel Jasmine. She was a shockingly short girl with black hair and a baby face, featuring her signature monocle.

She turned to us when we stepped in, glancing at me before looking at Pollux.

“Commander Pollux. Good to see you.”

“Likewise, Colonel Jasmine. This is Captain Cooper. He’ll be helping you assemble the infiltration team.”

“Ma’am.”

I gave a proper salute to Colonel Jasmine. It felt a bit comical to be saluting a girl who stood a few heads shorter than me. She definitely wasn’t any taller than five feet.

She gave a quick salute back, looking up at me.

“Cooper. Polly gave me the gist. I’ll do what I can from here, but there’s zero chance that I’m going anywhere beyond the confines of this base, and right now, all of the Snow Doves are out there fighting. If you want your candidates, you’re going to have to go get them. Since you have time before the other half of the Pathfinders gets here, I suggest you head out tonight when the siege dies down, that way you’ll get back to base and have enough time to prepare all the Pathfinders and your candidates.”

“Understood. I’ll take that advice.”

“Good. Now come sit. I need to brief you on the situation so you know how to handle. Everything is chaos right now. You could say this is the climax.”

She waved me over, and right then Pollux tapped me on the shoulder.

“I’m going to set up camp. Come report when you’re done here.”

“Yes sir.”

With a nod I turned back to Jasmine. After that she gave me a cool two hour rundown of absolutely every detail about every current battle and mission going on right now. She was thorough, which was nice, even if slightly overwhelming. I quickly figured out how she was able to get her rank.

The Treehouse had deployed all of its top-end forces to do battle across the entire landscape in the surrounding 100 miles. Only the bare minimum was kept here in order to fend off the sieges.

The mission I was in to destroy that encampment was a small glimpse of what had been going on for weeks now. Thousands of Scourge troops were marching into the surrounding land and spreading their disgusting blight wherever they could. The current map in the war room showed where the blight had spread, which amounted to around 30% of the land between the eastern crossing and the Treehouse.

There were also a dozen pins showing where encampments were, as well as routes that the Scourge was taking to send their troops. From this, I found out that the Treehouse had sent out all the Snow Doves and high-end combat power to pierce past the oncoming Scourge armies and attack the backlines where the really dangerous monsters resided. They wanted to rout this little invasion that way, instead of simply facing them head on. While it was a riskier move, it was certainly effective when done correctly.

I was able to quickly piece the puzzle together thanks to Jasmine’s detailed explanations. With all that though, I figured that actually getting to the Snow Doves would be difficult. My team just to get there would have to fend off quite a lot, and we’d have to move quickly. If we got stuck out there, we’d be hard pressed to actually get back. We also had to make sure that we’d know where the Snow Doves would move if they continued deeper, otherwise we’d show up to their current campsite and find nothing. It wouldn’t be good to get stranded with no leads in enemy territory.

That was easy to figure out though. They could only go so far and we’d be moving with haste. We just had to break past the line of monsters between us and them. Easy to say.

I bobbed my head, everything coming together in my mind as I figured out my strategy.

“Alright, I think I have everything I need. I’d prefer to take the Commander with me along with one squad. We can take a Steed, that way we keep our speed and firepower.”

“Don’t want to keep things quiet and discreet?”

“That would take too long. I want everything to be ready when the rest of the Pathfinders get here. I don't want to wait around and get swept into this mess. God forbid Alois orders us into battle just because we were idle for a day.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s the smart move.”

Jasmine nodded in agreement, then sighed.

“Well, I’ve told you everything I know. Come find me when its time to deploy. I’ll be your handler for this mission.”

“Are communications up?”

“Mm. I don’t know how Alois managed to get them, but he snagged some long range relays to set up a full line to Stronghold Charlie. While longer than normal though, my range only goes so far out into the field. I would just manage expectations.”

“Huh. I guess that means I can call my girlfriend, at least.”

I smiled and rubbed my chin. I had been thinking that I wouldn’t have service out here like last time, but it seemed Alois was good at pulling strings. Given the lucrative business this base was responsible for, I wasn’t surprised.

Jasmine shrugged.

“That’s all you. For now I’m going to sleep. Here’s my information. Ring me when you’re ready, and not a minute before. I haven’t slept in 35 hours.”

“That’s rough.”

I chuckled as Jasmine gave me her aerial contact. Then we walked out of the war room together, Jasmine cringing at the bright sunlight when we emerged.

“Fucking bright... Well, it was nice to meet you, Cooper.”

“Likewise, Colonel Jasmine.”

We shook hands, Jasmine’s entire hand getting enveloped by my comparative bear paws. She really was small, making me smile.

She muttered something about how huge I was while walking off. I went the other way, finding Pollux on a plot of empty ground having the squads setting up tents. Since there were no empty residential buildings, we got to camp out.

I went and briefed the man and started preparing what I would need for tonight’s departure.