Blue directed Kari to take some materials from a series of magical forest creatures. She knew that Elwin was well-suited to handling magical reagents, but he had a different role to play in this plan.

Kari took Blue to the opposite side of the base. That way he would be less likely to be detected.

A small green light followed them through the shady lanes. A wisp to relay Blue’s commands.

“We are ready,” Blue told the wisp, which promptly flew off to the main force of woodland creatures.

It didn’t take long before their assault began. First, the small sprites, wisps and woodland creatures poured into the base. It took a few seconds before the patrolling guards even noticed, at which point they became startled and readied their guns, but without a direct threat, they merely watched in confusion.

Soon after, there came a great rustling as dryads and ents crossed the barrier from all around the clearing. An alarm sounded in the distance.

“That’s our cue,” Blue said.

Kari obliged, walking across the barrier into the base while invisible as before. His stasis bracelet held the majority of his moisture field ‘invisibility cloak’ in place, so Kari required only the slightest attention to maintain it.

An ent-dryad pair walked before them, ready to dispose of any obstacle.

Discordant alarms were sounding all around them now.

Soldiers scrambled back and forth in a panic. They appeared to be gathering around several key buildings in the base, including what was presumably the armoury.

Unfortunately, one of those key buildings included the command centre where the radio dish was mounted.

“Hold a perimeter!” an Angel shouted.

The smaller woodland creatures and spirits attacked some of the soldiers who were out of position, harassing them.

Gnomes stabbed at their legs and feet with their pointy weapons. Insects bit and spat acid. Wisps flew close, emitting hot bursts. A pixie shed the dust of its wings onto an Angel.

“Woah. Woah! WOAH!” the man shouted as he began to float weightlessly into the air. His limbs flailed about, seeking purchase but finding nothing.

The larger ents and dryads approached the buildings, surrounding them. Any angels that approached were met by wooden limbs built with the girth of a great pine.

However, it wasn’t a completely one-sided fight. Although Blue’s forces had the element of surprise, machines could not be startled as even disciplined soldiers might be. Several large, sleek golden guns rose from the parapets of the Angel Base. One such turret turned its blue eye, firing a disc of hot plasma straight into the surging tide of forest creatures with a loud whoosh.

Instinctively sensing danger, many of the animals scattered before they could be struck, but an unlucky dryad was not so fortunate, cleaved into two by the hot projectile. The two halves were run into the ground with the force of the attack, leaving a trail of rent earth.

Elwin, hidden in the treeline, gasped with fright.

A thunderous volley of projectiles soon followed from the other cannons, causing similar devastation all throughout the base.

The Apolaphian forces froze for a moment in the aftermath, terrified by the overwhelming violence that had seemingly appeared from nowhere.

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It was just a passing moment, however. There came a cry of ancient elvish from the towering ents, and at once the Apolphian forces focused their attention on the mounted guns that had killed so many.

Roots stretched out from the ground, crawling up the polished metal walls, strangling the machines and stopping them from aiming. In the backlines, magic circles appeared on the floor, carved into the grass with wooden limbs and pointed sticks; others were burnt into the surface of the clearing by a flock of wisps. At once, reagents were placed at the appropriate points. The spells were cast and an ancient, terrifying spirit of the wood appeared, like a towering, ghostly giant. It was humanoid in figure but covered in glowing runes. Bark and vines replaced its skin and clothes. Its form was incomplete, missing its head, an arm, and parts of its torso. Elwin guessed that the magic used to summon it was imperfect. Not that it mattered in this case. Elwin watched as the giant spirit’s fist smashed a turret to pieces, even denting the part of the base that it was resting on.

The ground shook beneath Kari’s feet as he scrambled past the soldiers amidst the chaos. The tremors were so violent that he half expected to be sent flying into the air. Despite this, the human somehow kept his composure amidst the deafening noise and smell of burning wood and meat, ignoring the spectacle of battle as he was solely focused on achieving his goal.

The invisible Kari was headed towards the building with the radar dish; what Blue presumed to be the command centre, and in no time at all, he had reached the door. There was a black panel beside it. Blue recognised it as an access panel, yet just as Kari was beginning to wonder how they should get in, the door opened as a file of soldiers jogged out. Their captain held the door open from the inside. As the last of his unit was about to clear the threshold, the captain stepped into line behind him.

“Go!” Blue hissed. Yet, the doorway was not wide enough for the Kari to pass without collision.

Kari made a split-second decision, right as the squad captain was about to step out, Kari stuck his foot out, causing him to trip and fall.

“What the-!“ The captain exclaimed as he suddenly lurched forward. Kari took the opportunity to quickly step over him and into the command centre. The door slid shut behind him, cutting off the sounds from outside. The interior of the command centre was relatively peaceful.

Now, where would they find a transponder?

“Let’s go upstairs to the main control room. They’re bound to have spare transponders lying around.” Blue said.

Kari could imagine a million ways this could go wrong. He simply hoped that Blue had a plan in the case they were discovered.

One by one, they checked the doors, but they were all locked.

Realising that he was performing a futile exercise, Kari used his Gift to sense the presence of people through walls and quickly found all but two rooms empty.

He relayed this information to Blue.

“Alright then, let’s try the nearest occupied room.”

“How do you know it’s the right one?” Kari asked.

“Given the shape of the building, this room is the most secure. It’s the one most likely to house the actual command centre.”

They came to an interior door. Upon her request, Kari held Blue to the nearby access panel. Tendrils of her morphic orb wormed their way into the cracks, seeping behind the panel.

“This will only take a moment.” She said.

And sure enough, the door slid open. They made their way to the room.

“What do we do about the people inside?” Kari asked.

“Remember what we discussed?”

Blue hacked the panel, directly, gently tampering with the circuitry to force the door open as she had before.

There was only one person inside. A man that must’ve been the chief communications officer. He sat just a few meters away, intensely focused on the many screens before him. They showed scenes of carnage from the many cameras throughout the base. The was a small, important-looking black box plugged into the console before the man.

“That’s a transponder on the desk in front of him,” Blue whispered, nearly inaudible. “I need to get close to it to force an override.”

“He’s going to notice,” Kari said as quietly as possible.

“Your time to shine, then.”

Realising that an obvious weapon would draw attention to them, Kari decided to give Blue’s prior suggestion a try. He focused his gift on the man’s copious amounts of sweat, willing it to evaporate.

“Ah.” The man said, letting out a voice as his body temperature suddenly plummeted. “It’s. So. Cold!” he looked around in confusion, yawning as he did so, but he failed to see through Kari’s invisibility. He began to sway.

Kari continued to mercilessly evaporate the man’s sweat that had even drenched his uniform in the hot room.

At this point, Kari was certain the man would be severely hypothermic. It occurred to the hydrohand that the man’s blood might freeze, which might lead to blood vessels being torn as the water expanded turning into ice.

If he dies, he dies. Kari thought apathetically.

“Why. Am. I. so…?” the man failed to finish talking, passing out onto the desk in front of him.

“Sleepy?” Blue asked, sarcastically finishing his sentence. Kari placed her beside the transponder, and she got to work.