Strangely, she wasn’t interacting with the transponder directly as she did with the access panel for the control room. Interacting with the transponder’s circuitry would not reveal the quantum encryption code. By the nature of quantum particles, obtaining the code through normal means would be impossible. As soon as the quantum signal was tapped or ‘measured’, it would change. Only those already entangled with the code would know what was being communicated. Not to mention, the code was likely being periodically reset.

Therefore, Blue was going to use magic. She spread morphic metal around the transponder, casting a net. It appeared oddly geometric in shape and regularity, quickly becoming infinitely complex as the circular patterns comprising the ring overlapped.

“Kari, I require the magical reagents I handed you.”

Kari wordlessly procured them for her.

Strange mosses, lights, insects, bark, seeds. All unfamiliar to Kari. He had not even the slightest clue what purpose each material served.

To Kari, something about Blue’s work seemed so familiar. It was like a magic circle but in the form of a sphere…

A three-dimensional magic circle? Kari wondered. He had never even considered the possibility, yet here this un-living elf was creating one. Two-dimensional magic circles were difficult enough to create. The tolerance in length, straightness, and angle of each line and curve was extremely strict science. Making a real three-dimensional magic circle was completely unheard of.

Just how great was Blue’s intellect?

Soon, Blue was done. The magical reagents burned away in golden light. Blue reabsorbed the morphic metal into the main bulk of her orb ‘body’.

“Done. Let’s get out of here.” She said.

They quickly began to make their way out of the building, with Blue forcing open the doors as she had done before. It was risky as Kari was unable to hide the tendrils Blue would extend out of his invisibility field.

“Great work in there. Honestly, I’m surprised the evaporation attack worked so well.”

“As am I.”

They came to the final door and managed to sneak out.

Outside, there was a tense standoff, with neither side seemingly wanting to make a move.

The soldiers stared down at the forest come to their doorstep, barely ten meters away from their defensive line. Beneath their alloy armour, they were white-knuckling their guns in terror. Glowing eyes at varying heights and depths stared back menacingly. A fallen electric light behind the mass of leafy, eccentric bodies sparked, spat and flickered, casting an ominous light upon the forces of Apolaphia.

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“Steady, soldiers. Steady.” Their commander said in a sturdy voice as his troops trembled.

The Incandestine forces stood in a circular perimeter around the four central buildings of the military base, forming a circle about sixty meters across. With Lucina’s men huddled together, there was no way for Kari and Blue to pass without being noticed.

The assembled living trees and mystical entities entirely encapsulated the Incandestine forces. Wherever the soldiers’ eyes wandered, only the wild forms and shapes of the Ellenian forest could be seen.

If they opened fire, what would become of them? It would take just one swing of an ent’s colossal trunk-arms to crush five men to death.

“Do you see a way out?” Kari asked Blue.

“No… The forest will have to help us. Get ready to run.” Blue said.

Before Kari could respond, she spoke loudly in an unrecognisable language, her orb vibrating intensely against Kari’s chest as it transmitted her voice.

The soldiers nearby turned to look at him, or rather, the lack of him.

Kari reflexively froze.

Unfortunately for the curious soldiers, with their heads facing the wrong way, that was when all hell broke loose.

All the forest’s forces attacked at once. The soldiers in front of Kari were completely bowled away with the sound of crunching metal, and more disturbingly, bone.

Elsewhere the soldiers began to retaliate, causing the bright blue flashes of their plasma rifles to blindingly light up the black night.

Kari made a break for it, sprinting between the legs of the ent in front of him. A nearby dryad extended its vinelike arms to smack at the soldier’s guns from the side, causing an entire volley of shots to miss. Wisps flew in front of Incandestine visors, blinding them with flashes of magical light. Squirrels and other creatures clambered up the soldiers’ legs and into tiny gaps in their clothes. A ghostly buck with magnificent horns kicked at two Angels, knocking them out mystically without having to contest the strength of their metal armour.

Hurried breaths made across the disorientating dark, shaky ground, and Kari had made it through to the other side of the conflict.

Once they were in the clear, Blue once again gave a signal in the ancient tongue, and the might of the forest began to disperse without further confusion.

Soon after, the majority of the Angels stopped firing at the retreating forest. They seemed to be regathering their forces and assisting the wounded, staring with anxious eyes into the dark forest that had left just as soon as it had mysteriously appeared.

Retreating back to their own base, Kari spotted Elwin dousing the fires of ignited ents with dirt. Although there were some wounded, like a dryad who had forsaken their burning left arm, Kari was surprised to see so few losses among the forest’s forces. Reuniting with Elwin, Kari assisted in helping extinguish any tree-people that were still burning.

Once they were done, the trio, Kari, Elwin and Blue, thanked them, watching the creatures of the forest disappear into their home.

“I don’t know how to feel about this. We barely knew them, but they put their lives on the line for us.” Elwin said.

“Don’t worry. Though you may not have known them, many of them knew me, and they did what they believed was right. For all of us.” Blue told them. “We should set up for the night. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

Kari was awfully silent amidst this exchange.

“What do we have to show for all this?” Elwin asked.

Blue relayed the signals she could now receive using the encryption code that she had obtained from inside the base. There came a jumble of voices and jargon but a particularly striking voice stood out. Empress Lucina’s.