As it turned out, it wasn't the flying itself that was the problem, it was the fact that Mel couldn't see a thing. Through his narrowed eyes, he could just see a lot of white, and the fact that snow and ice kept falling into them wasn't helping either.

Thankfully though, Kaleth seemed to have little problem seeing, so he navigated. It wasn't exactly easy, but it was good enough to get Mel to fly where he was supposed to.

The moments when Mel could hear something other than the deafening howl of wind were filled with distant machine gun fire and crashing. Sometimes he could see the flash of an explosion through the snow, but those were few and far between.

He was really getting concerned that someone would shoot them accidentally, but that had yet to happen.

They are completely ignoring the army, Kaleth said to Mel with his mind, his internal voice beyond frustrated. Mel understood why. Kaleth didn't like it when things didn't make sense to him. And they aren't heading to Aleara either.

Mel shook his head as a large shard of ice his the side of his face. It didn't really hurt, but it was uncomfortable. What's the closest city?

Kaleth didn't reply, but the dread he sent Mel's way right after hearing that was enough of an answer. All he said was: Fuck.

Mel pushed himself to fly even faster, his eyes closed most of the time at this point. He hoped he was high up enough to avoid any crashing, but he couldn't know. Irithara had many, very tall mountains. He just hoped Kaleth would warn him if necessary.

There! Kaleth exclaimed, sending Mel images of what he was seeing through the goggles. A hundred or more aircrafts bombing the town on their right. For no apparent reason. Mel knew these people's goal was to attack Irithara, but this....

His mouth suddenly dry, he tried to ignore so very hard what this implied, and instead he just dove right in, hoping that Kaleth would be able to stop this if he got him close enough.

The snow storm was letting up a little it seemed, so at least Mel could tell where he was going now, but he couldn't see any details of anything. Only the explosions and the burning houses. Some of the explosions were from the aircrafts being shot down, which gave Mel some hope, but it was not nearly enough because it always seemed like the fallen machine was immediately replaced with another.

And they simply ignored the soldiers shooting rockets at them—at most simply occasionally throwing a bomb at them. Did this make any tactical sense at all?

A little closer, Kaleth told him. Mel could already feel him radiating power as he prepared to strike. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time, but right now Mel couldn't care less that Kaleth was shining with the same light Enor had, he just wanted this to stop.

Finally getting in range, Mel watched as one by one the aircrafts were crushed and fell to the ground, swallowed by the inferno they'd caused. Mel was selfishly very, very glad he couldn't see the dead bodies that were definitely there.

Like this, Kaleth disposed of all the aircrafts in sight quickly, but clearly it had been taxing, judging by how heavily he was breathing.

Land.

Mel did as he was told, landing where Kaleth showed him, close to the soldiers and their rocket launching cars. Mel didn't know much about the Iritharian military, but he was pretty sure the soldier Kaleth was currently heading towards was a high ranking member. And he looked scary. They all did.

Mel quickly caught up to Kaleth, shielding him from the now less severe storm with his wing.

"You need to go protect nearby towns and cities immediately!" Kaleth yelled at the leader over the wind. He was speaking in Iritharian again. Mel would have to remember to compliment that at some point. It was very impressive to him that Kaleth was bilingual. "Leave a few soldiers here to take care of any Eternals that might have survived and anyone injured, and go protect your people. They are after civilians. They don't want to fight, they want to kill!"

Most of the soldiers looked like they wanted to say something that Mel doubted Kaleth would want to hear, and they were also giving them looks that Mel didn't like one bit. But in the end they seemed to decide against saying anything. Probably because of what Kaleth had just done.

And thinking about it now, it was kind of incredible. Mel wasn't surprised, though, Kaleth was incredibly strong now, after all.

The leader gave Kaleth a nod and shouted orders to his men who immediately got to work, running into the damaged town to look for survivors. "We need to consult this with the King!"

"Fine, do that. He'll agree!" Kaleth yelled, clearly impatient as he climbed onto Mel's back again.

We need to keep going if we want to save lives, he told Mel. Mel wasn't going to argue with that, despite being concerned about Kaleth's state. This was more important than either of them.

They went from one town to the next, sometimes saving everyone, while other times the damage was so intense that Mel didn't think there was a single person alive. Kaleth had changed his tactic after a while, simply ripping off engines instead of crushing the entire aircraft, which seemed to have helped with his energy use.

Mel didn't say anything but he could tell Kaleth was getting weaker. There was no time for rest though—if they stopped, more people would die. Thankfully—or unfortunately, depending on which angle Mel looked at—the flights between the towns did take a considerable amount of time, so Kaleth could regain some power during the trips. Unfortunately, that wasn't true for Mel, who was getting pretty tired from flying so fast for what felt like hours now. Maybe it had been, he couldn't tell anymore.

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But he would never tell Kaleth. He knew that if he did, Kaleth would share his power, and that was the last thing Mel wanted right now. Kaleth needed it more. Mel wished he knew what was going on farther inside the territory, but unfortunately that wasn't the important thing right now. He just hoped that the bigger cities hadn't been attacked yet, as they were at least an hour away from where the attacks were happening. That was no guarantee of anything, though.

As far as Mel knew, this was happening everywhere at once. At least the military seemed to have gotten better at repelling the attackers now, which at least gave Kaleth some extra time to rest.

As they destroyed another ten or fifteen aircrafts, saving a town of about two thousand people—at least Mel guessed—Mel heard a familiar voice in his head.

Doing okay, bro?

Mel smiled, telling Kaleth that Rayni was around somewhere. They had flown so far that they escaped the snow storm at this point, so the only thing obscuring Mel's vision was the ever-present smoke.

I'm fine, Kaleth's doing most of the work, Mel replied, finally spotting Rayni in the middle of a half-destroyed house, stomping out fire and holding it at bay as Iritharians escaped the ruins.

We need to have a quick talk, Rayni said, clearly trying to hide the fear in her voice, but she wasn't really doing it well. Mel wasn't surprised—it was hard hiding emotions when using telepathy.

Mel quickly shared the information with Kaleth who seemed to want to protest, but just nodded anyway. That honestly just made Mel more concerned.

As he landed just outside the destroyed neighborhood, Mel winced. He could feel there was nobody alive under the wreckage. He just hoped that meant that Rayni and the soldiers and medics working with her had just done a good job rescuing everyone, but he knew that was naive to believe.

As Kaleth climbed off Mel's back, Mel was almost shocked by his appearance. Even though he was wearing the goggles, he looked so tired. And there was ash in his hair and on his face. Not to mention that his usually combed back hair stuck out in places, and fell in his eyes in others. It was just very odd to see him this way, given that Kaleth usually looked pristine.

It made Mel wonder how he looked as he checked his front legs.

Mereria and Rayni joined them a minute later as Rayni jumped towards Mel and pressed her neck into his. Noticing her wings slumping, Mel frowned. Had she really been so worried about him? But he had Kaleth with him—very little could stop him.

I'm so glad you're okay, Rayni told him, and Mel smiled at her.

I'm glad you're okay, too.

Mel had felt Kaleth tense up as soon as Mereria appeared, but so far they hadn't started fighting. That was either good, or very, very bad.

"This," Mereria began, her voice somewhere between horror and fury, "all of this! This has to be Enor."

"You yourself said you killed him. Relioth told me the same," Kaleth argued, but the emotion Mel was getting from him was mostly controlled dread. And also a complete lack of surprise. As if he'd thought so deep down all along.

"I don't know how it's possible, but this is exactly what he would do. Ignoring the military is a moronic idea if you care about your soldiers, or at least the money they cost. Enor wouldn't care about either," Mereria said and Rayni finally stepped away from Mel. "This isn't even caring about winning. It's clear the point of this is to kill as many Iritharians as possible."

"Also I killed some of the Eternals that managed to make it from the crash, and they were ex-Luxarx," she blurted out, her eyes wide.

"Who?" Kaleth asked immediately, his discomfort finally giving way to anger.

"This chick from reconnaissance, you didn't know her," Rayni said, waving her paw. "The point is, they are Eternals now, and they're brainwashed."

"It would make sense to use them," Mereria said, apparently not disturbed by any of this. "Weren't they imprisoned by Tharos? No one would look for them if they disappeared."

"Don't even start," Kaleth growled at her. "I didn't need to know this."

"Yes, you did," Mereria snapped back. "Who else would know how not only to make more Eternals, but also make them follow them without question?"

Kaleth turned away, climbing back on Mel's back. "If he is here, I will kill him."

Let's keep moving, Kaleth told Mel, stroking his back. Mel gave Rayni an apologetic look before springing up and flapping his aching wings again. He wondered how long it would take before he just couldn't get up into the air anymore.

And now Mel didn't even have the same resolve to do this anymore. If what Rayni had said was true, no matter which side won, innocent people would die. And not to mention all this talk of Enor was making Mel want to fly away and hide.

But he wouldn't do that. He couldn't. He promised Kaleth, and he couldn't let these poor people just be slaughtered.

Mel, we have to—

I know, Mel cut Kaleth off, already flying towards what would inevitably be another ruined town. Since they were flying along the coast and there had been no Eternals on their side to help, the damage was sometimes so severe that the soldiers just helped the few survivors to safety and gave up on the town.

It made Mel's eyes water, but what else could be done? Kaleth destroyed the remaining aircrafts as usual and they were off again, flying to another town and then another.

Mel tried to focus on only the pristine white field he was flying over, trying to distract himself with its snowy beauty, but it wasn't really working.

Mel, he heard Kaleth say, but he didn't react, just waited for him to continue. I know things look grim, but we are winning across the board. Yorin has been sending me updates through my goggles. Supposedly he and the military have been managing to hold most of the southeastern shore.

Mel nodded. While that meant that innocent people had died, at least the bloodshed would stop. It's just.... So many people have died already.

I'll admit I didn't see that coming, Kaleth replied, his words laced with disappointment in himself. This tactic.... Well, it's not actually a tactic. I expected an attempt at a war. This isn't....

He paused for a moment, radiating frustration.

We're almost at the western coast, he concluded. Right, that meant that they helped out in almost every town. Almost. Mel could already see a column of smoke rising on the horizon. His wings felt like they would fall off at this point, but Mel just pushed himself to go faster.

He could almost see the aircrafts, almost get Kaleth in range.

But before he could reach them, the noise of huge engines stopped him. First he'd ignored it but it got louder and louder, and he couldn't anymore. As a shadow cowered them, Mel turned his head around, looking up in horror.

Above them, a huge aircraft, bigger than anything Mel had ever seen before fly, was hovering, moving slowly farther inside the Empire's territory.

But none of that made Mel feel as hopeless as what he could feel awaited inside the massive flying machine. A shine like no other, as bright and warm, and as destructive and powerful as the sun. The same light that was inside of Kaleth.

Enor was here.