Victory was for brighter days. This was a day for retreat. The sun would crest another time in another place, maybe even for another man.

"Grow it out." She said. Reese turned to his to side and there she was, looking up at him with those big eyes that always seemed to glint with emerald starlight no matter the time of day.

"What?" He asked in a daze. She stepped closer to him and ran a hand through the tangled mess of his fledgling beard.

"You should grow it out. I always wondered what you'd look like with a beard?" She said, beaming.

"That's easy, he'd look old." The other said. She sprang aside and dodged past Reese and Serah, clearly uninterested in talking with them. A mess of white hair fell from beneath her black and pink baseball cap. She slicked it back and bundled what remained into the hat.

The corridor was dark. The sunlight couldn't reach through this much cold steel; but nor could the flaming hail.

Reese scratched at his massing stubble while he walked along the corridor. "It'll get in the way." He mumbled to himself. He stepped over a fallen pipe and rounded the corner where he found the vast hangar bay and the frantic people within. A horde of chiefs and farmers, tailors and cobblers bundled into improvised transports by the thousand. Above them, a hundred soldiers kept their watch from catwalks and suspended platforms. They seemed to be more interested in their comm devices than their duties. Had Reese been their CO he'd have had them all running laps of the hangar in full gear for the discrepancy.

He noticed that, despite the vast open hangar bay door, the sun still didn't reach him. He looked out at the island and saw why. What could have been a million shuttles fled east. A cloud of fresh refugees, like a vast plague of locusts, blotted out the sun as they swarmed the sky. Soon enough, he would be at the front of the retreat; fleeing defeat and dodging death for one more day.

"Lieutenant!" A spot scarred young corporal called out. Reese turned to him and waved away the young man's salute. "Your shuttle is ready, sir! How many onboard?" He asked.

"Sintred's coming with us." Iris shouted from amongst a small crowd. He realised she was treating an old man's minor injuries. A scrape and scratch as well as what looked like a bed sore. It was a waste of resources, but she wouldn't care.

"Lara Black, Adeladia Tempish, Iris Commons, Bernard Garrison, Emanual Sintred and myself." Reese counted aloud for the soldier. The boy marked the names down, ticking as Reese spoke.

"Oh..." The boy said. "It seems we are expecting one more, Sir. An... Aricci Mason?"

Reese took a moment to respond and when he finally did, his voice was much colder than it should have been. "Mason was lost in action." He grimly reported. The boy nodded slightly but didn't react otherwise. Where he had given the other names ticks, he wrote 'LIA' for Archi.

The boy guided him along the winding catwalks. There was three layers of pathway. The bottom most was for the displaced; the menial folk who kept Elysium alive. They were penned in and funnelled along, though most had already left by this point. The next layer was a series of suspended catwalks. The shuttles awaiting passengers here were much more sturdy. Armoured personal carriers, meant for soldiers. The worryingly sparse men and women jogging along into their designated craft would soon be sent to fight off any MOG forces that hadn't been crippled by oblivion. The top layer, the layer on which Reese walked, held priority craft. Convoys for dignitaries and top line jets meant for scientists and VIPs.

"And... This is you, sir." The boy said, pointing towards a clunky but well armoured shuttle.

"It's older than you?" Reese complained. He ran a finger along the thick steel body and a layer of pure black dust came off, exposing the blue paint below.

"I'm sure that's not true, sir." The boy politely laughed. "All other VIP vessels have been sent off already, I'm afraid."

He opened the door and inspected the ancient interior. The ship seemed like it had been in storage since the old war. He didn't bother dusting it down as there wouldn't be nearly enough time.

"Kid?" He called into his comm.

"What?" She coldly called back. He chose to ignore her tone, instead speaking as neutrally as he could.

"Grab Sash and Ade. Our shuttle is ready." He said.

"Okay." She simply responded.

"Oh, kid!" He quickly began.

"What?" Lara answered, impatience blatant in her tone.

"You're flying." He told her as he poked his head into the cockpit. Two dusty old leather seats were cramped into a space too small to lie in.

"Me?" She questioned. A small smile found him after hearing her tone pick up.

"Yup." He simply answered, mimicking her previous impatient tone.

It wasn't long before the remnants of Raptor lined up. What little excitement Lara had held at the prospect of flying quickly left her as soon as she saw the ancient craft. She quickly circled the blocky exterior; the rusted chassis; the dust caked windshield. She lightly kicked the front lift generator and a chunk of rusted metal splintered and fell to the platform below.

"We've got to fly to We'illa in that?" Serah complained. She drew a simple frowny face from the dust covering the rear window.

"Yup. Where's the rest?" Reese asked. Serah, Ade and Lara had arrived but Garrison and Sintred where nowhere to be seen.

"Garrison went to help Emanual gather some things. They shan't be long." Serah explained. She continued her inspection, circling around the rust bucket as it hovered lazily over the vast gap.

"Lieutenant!" An older soldier wearing a naval uniform called out from the catwalk beneath them. He waved up with a slightly frantic fervour and caught Raptor's eyes. Reese couldn't see his rank insignia but afforded the man the respects of authority due to his age.

"Can I help you?" He called down.

"Ensign." Lara whispered, seemingly knowing Reese couldn't tell.

"Can I help you, ensign?" He shouted down with much more authority.

"Sir! One of my engineers found something strange. You're the only officer I could find, do you have orders?" He shouted over the noise of the bustling crowds.

"What did you find?" Reese called back.

"We aren't sure, but it looks bad." He replied.

Reese looked down at the catwalks, he traced the nearest path and saw it would take him around the entire hangar just to get down.

"Kid, do you think you can climb down?" He asked. He looked over the area between the two platforms but couldn't see any paths she could traverse. She leant over the railings before saying, "Yes, sir." In a confident but cold tone. Without another breath to slow her, she leapt from the railing across to a hanging girder. She tied a rope around it with a speed and grace she typically lacked when even simply walking. Her boots wrapped around the rope and she slid down with enough speed that her gloves seemed to smoke before she landed with a gentle thump.

He couldn't hear them talk, but watched as the ensign drew Lara away.

"What are the odds it's just a funnily shaped stain?" Serah suggested with a light nudge into Ade.

"He said it looks bad." Reese said. He hadn't turned his gaze from where Lara had been whisked off to and looked ready to pounce from the catwalk at the first sign of trouble.

"Okay..." Serah said. "So a stain that looks like you." She joked. He didn't entertain her.

"Kid." He called into his comm.

"Reese, It's bad." She answered almost before he finished speaking.

"What is it?" He asked, he awaited no response but signalled for Ade to get in the shuttle as he dragged Serah along towards where Lara had been taken.

"It looks like a bomb. The engineers are scouring the other shuttles for anything similar." She reported. Serah ripped the comm from Reese's arm and spoke into it as the two started running in her direction.

"Describe it to me." She ordered.

"It's a flat triangle with a coil wrapped around it. Most of it is hidden behind a black panel. Should I take it off?" Lara asked.

"No!" Serah shouted. "Don't touch it, if it's ministry it will have anti-sabotage sensors." Serah pulled her little drone from her pack and threw it out. "Millie's on her way. Just get everyone back." She panted. The small flying ball screeched off, a black and gold trail glinting close behind it.

It was moments before it arrived and moments more before it's feed was sent through to Serah's wrist. She didn't stop running while she checked it over.

"Get away from it." Serah breathlessly called. She slowed her pace somewhat as she worked but still kept to a frantic run.

"It's a bomb?" Reese asked.

"I don't think so, it looks more like an EMP; not that it'll make much difference." Serah answered. They rounded a final corner and bounded down a set of steel stairs before Lara finally came into view.

"What's the worst case scenario?" He said. His eyes darted between all of the engineers surrounding him. "Somebody planted it, one of them must be a traitor." He thought. He looked over their postures, all seemed equally and appropriately scared. All seemed ready to recoil and run at the sight of a single spark. All wore their uniforms at the absolute boundaries of what was acceptable, grease stained and scruffy; an officer's nightmare but exactly how mid-battle engineers ought to look.

"Chaos." Serah said. The word oozed with dire consequence. "If they've planted these on other shuttles too?" She looked away from her drone for a moment and drew in Reese's attention. "A chain reaction, dozens of shuttles; hundreds if not thousands dead."

"Ade..." Lara gasped. Her comm rose to her masked lips. "Ade! Get out of the shuttle!" She ordered, though she received no response. Her dreadful eyes darted to Reese and he nodded, "Go." Was all he could order before she dashed away. He turned to Serah but received no acknowledgment. Half a mind was made to follow Lara and check up on Ade, but a rising horror in his belly kept him close by Serah's side.

"Shit!" She shouted. Her hand jolted away from the panel as a bolt of blue lit her sparsely freckled face. The device seemed to stir soon after, whirring and grinding away in what seemed to be the prelude to an explosion.

"Get away!" Reese called. He reached a hand out and tugged harshly at her shoulder, dragging her from the shuttle despite her grumbled protests. It erupted soon after. A thousand snakes of brilliant and terrible light writhed and rushed around the shuttle. They shot from the device like a thousand rapid scuttling spider legs while the body of the creature remained barely contained within. The sprawling and scorching electricity ripped violently through the air and wrapped like a lover around the shuttle's grav-thrusters; squeezing in such ecstasy that all exploded around. Downpours of molten metal fell upon the innocents below while glass like fragments peppered the soldiers around the device. Had it not been for their SBAs, Reese and Serah would have shared in the engineer's fates as shredded mounds of flesh and debris on the floor.

One by one, shuttles around them writhed and erupted before crashing down upon the fleeing refugees below. It seemed only the military vehicles had been targeted. He stood over Serah, holding her to the ground as he scanned the area around them. He noticed them quickly. While the crowds of refugees scattered and ran in their panic, two dozen men stood in opposition to the crowds. It was only when they drew their rifles, and fired off without regard into the chaos, that he reacted and drew Serah away. They fled upwards, to where their shuttle still lay. It mustn't have been targeted. A couple of stray bullets made their way up and past him as he ran thought they didn't seem targeted. With a panted breath, and raised rifle, he arrived at the top layer catwalk where Lara lay flat on her back. She didn't stay for long, though. She rose like a firework, quickly and with a great bang. Hou Yi fired as she found her feet, and the bullet tore through the wall. She fired twice more, each time into the wall across from her before she noticed Reese charge up beside her.

"Ministry elites!" She shouted, firing again. He couldn't see any of them and assumed she had her HLDAR scanner set up against the wall. She must be tracking their outlines and waiting for them to walk past weak points in the walls.

"How many?" He asked, pointing his rifle to the nearest door.

"A full unit. One took a high power round direct to the belly and kept fighting, so your rifle isn't gonna be much use." Lara reported. She pointed her off hand along the wall, tracing slowly left. It seemed a soldier was rounding the corner and would breach soon.

"You go that NEWT sword... thingy?" Serah asked. He peeled his eyes from his post and turned to her as she set Millie up to cover Ade.

"Nah, Sintred took it for study." He answered. His eyes fell back to his rifle's optic, and the door it held in view.

"Speaking of..." Lara grunted after another round sounded. "Where are they?"

"Sash, signal them." Reese ordered.

Serah rustled through her pack for a moment though drew nothing from it. She activated her comm and tuned into the public Raptor channel.

"Commander, come in?" She called. Her eyes fell to the young girl aside her; her freshly healing scar over her scared little face; the white cotton patch where a deep brown eye had been; the pistol she cradled in her shaking hands. Serah hadn't realised she still had it, Lara had given it to her in the previous fight but mustn't have taken it back since.

"Doctor!" A burley German voice sang out. He was breathless but clearly still running. "We are nearly there. Can you hold out?"

"Yes, commander. We're all here and ready to go." She reported.

An explosion caught her breath, the heat ripping all air from the catwalk for a brief instant. When she gathered her composure, and checked Ade was unhurt, she looked up and realised the wall had been blown down and a group of well armed men had began flooding in. As if by instinct, she fell in formation beside the killer siblings and called Millie to her heel.

"Elites, Reese. Just three of them beat your ass last time." Lara said in the moments before combat began.

"I was alone last time." He smirked, though kept his eyes forward. "Ladies, if you would."

They fought not as three, but one. They fought as the rebels of the undercity, as the red coats, as the spy family of Seoul, as Raptors. Reese took the hit, and Lara sent six back. Millie flew up and the Mack bounced from her, landing atop an enemy too far for grizzled soldier to reach. Serah rolled smoke across the battleground while Reese rolled an enemy over his shoulder where Lara was ready to swing her rifle down like a bat, crushing his skull beneath her weight.

Millie rounded the field, disabling guns and forcing a fist fight. Reese took his boxers stance, going blow for blow against even the largest of men while Lara sprung and rolled like a gymnast. She clambered atop of her enemies, using their size and weight against them as she pulled them all to the ground. Serah kept to their backs, controlling Millie and occasionally breaking any would-be flankers trying to sneak up on the others. They always assumed her to be vulnerable, simply a drone operator, which is why she always won. It was true that she was a lesser fighter than the others but that didn't mean she would lose. She simply had to fight with her tricks and mind rather than via physical prowess.

A troop rounded on her, ducking her punch and moving to tackle her until he felt her boot plant firmly into his thigh and the spike eject from beneath it. It wouldn't pierce his SBA but it would do it's job. An electrical current coursed through the spike and overloaded his protection leaving him a drooling mess on the ground.

It seemed that no matter what they did, the elites simply refused to die. Reese snapped one mans back over his knee but the MOG simply drew a knife and crawled his way over to Lara. When Lara pulled Hou Yi and fired an ear splitting bullet through one mans belly and into the next behind him, neither seemed deterred for more than a few seconds. The sight of a man marching with a hole in him the size of her fist distracted Serah for long enough that a trio of troopers managed to get behind her. When she span to meet them, a rifle butt span to meet her and then it seemed the whole world might have span around her. The ground caught her and all the blood she had so impolitely dropped on it.

Her fear of death didn't stew long. The need for fear was so quickly stolen from her by the great lumbering titan of a man as he picked the assailing MOG over his head and - ever the gentleman - set him back down on the ground, though the ground upon which he chose to lower the soldier did happen to be several storeys lower.

"Serah, are you well?" Garrison shouted as he battled the remaining two MOGs. Her daze had come and gone by this point, and she was already rising to her feet, but her words came out somewhat slurred, "Yes, sir. Where's- Where's Emanual?" She took her little rifle and peppered ineffectual bullets at passing enemies as Reese and Lara fought them off.

"Here, Doctor Commons!" The frail old man called from behind Millie's cover.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Lieutenant!" Garrison called across the field. He held a man in each hand, one dangled by his ankle the other by his throat. "We are leaving!"

A soldier sent a vicious hook towards Lara though Reese caught it with an equally vicious kick landing on - and breaking - the soldier's arm. He pulled Lara from the soldier she was so occupied by and threw her back towards the shuttle. "Get the engine started!" He ordered. She carried the momentum of his throw into a roll before she ran, weaving and dodging between a fleet of murder filled men. She ducked a punch from a newly one armed man as a desperate bullet floated overhead, sent from a mangled bag of dying bones that had been a hopeful young woman mere hours before.

She dove into the cabin - crashing her head against the low roof - and landed heavily in the old bucket seat.

"Get in!" Lara called out. Sintred was first, falling in without a trace of composure nor grace. Then Reese pulled away from the fight. He took form aside Serah, firing out from behind Millie's metal barrier. The two fired off rounds by the dozen, though none of them had much purpose beyond making scary noises.

"Go!" He ordered Serah, and she did. She dragged Ade along by the wrist as she moved for the vessel. She seemed not to notice for a moment as Ade's hand slipped from her own though she did hear the scream.

An elite, bloody and beaten, had rose from his camouflage amongst a mound of corpses. His arm had wrapped tightly around the teenager's neck and yanked her from her path. She dangled in his embrace, her feet half a meter from the ground. Serah rounded with her rifle, though couldn't find a shot that didn't endanger Ade. There was no time for a stand off, tens of other elites were forging a path ever closer to the shuttle and Reese could only hold them off for a short while.

"Ade!" Serah screamed. She expected the girl to struggle in vain, or cry out in terror, but instead of all that; she drew Lara's sidearm and planted it beneath the soldiers jaw, loosing four rounds in quick succession.

She was blood-soaked; a chunk of eyeball clung to her clothes. His arm fell from her neck and she landed gently on the ground, turning to look at him as his final neurons fired and his standing corpse twitched. A sheen of sanguine sparkled like sweat as a bead ran down and mixed with the dirt & dust gathered through the day.

He fell heavily and unsettled the dust around him. The fighting around him didn't seem to bother her. Her face was vacant, unbothered. Serah charged towards her as quickly as she could.

"Get down!" She called, but Ade didn't listen. She stepped onto the chest of the corpse and knelt down, looking him in his one remaining eye. Then, she stood and began towards Serah without a trace of urgency. As she reached her third step from the man, she lazily fired three more rounds into him. She didn't raise the pistol to shoot but let it sling behind her lazily as it shot, her arm down by her side.

Serah pulled the gun from Ade's grasp before pushing her head beneath Serah's body and dragging her away from the still raging battle. Garrison met them on the walk, grabbing them both like sacks of potatoes and throwing them carelessly into the shuttle.

"Boy! Here, now!" Garrison called back, though Reese was already at him by the time he could finish.

Then all were loaded, but all were unmoving too. "Sergeant! Move!" Garrison ordered as he frantically fired off his oversized machine gun.

"We can't!" Lara replied. The shuttle drifted away from the catwalk but didn't make any attempt at the exit. "They've towed us!" She explained. Garrison pulled his head into her cockpit and looked where her finger traced. A dozen men holding steel cables beneath them. One end had been drilled into the ground, the other magnetised to the bottom of the craft. Around the cables was hundreds of dead and dying civilians, as well as the couple dozen Alliance troops left to defend them.

"We are harpooned?" Garrison asked in disbelief. He turned to Sintred quickly. "Can we disable the magnets?" He asked.

"They will have power generators at the bottom, I can disable them." He confidently answered, though it was clear his confidence was both feigned and strained.

"Sir!" Reese began. He stood and bore his rifle, ready to fight.

"Sit, Lieutenant." The old man calmly ordered. He looked the much younger man in the eyes, his own beaming with something like pride.

"Sir? Someone has to keep him covered." Reese insisted.

"Yes." Bernie smiled. "Emanual, if you would?"

Sintred stood beside Garrison, the two smiling in dire understanding. "Shall we, old man?" Sintred offered.

"Of course, my friend." Garrison said. He turned to Lara. "When the cable is disabled, flee. It matters not if I - Or the good doctor - make it back in time."

"Flee?" Lara repeated. "But... Sir. The civilians need us."

"The civilians are..." He swallowed the word but eventually spat it back out. "Irrelevant." Garrison let loose a sight before dropping his eyes on the blood sodden child sat calmly in the back. "She is all that matters. When I give the order... Flee." His words were stern, his stance strong but his eyes... His eyes were warm, sad. There was no argument after that. Lara nodded and steeled herself for a quick escape.

"I'll send Millie." Serah offered. "For cover."

Garrison nodded, slid the door open and thundered alone towards the ground.

A flurry of bullets, a hail of fists. Each of the men seemed like titans, but Garrison was a Titan. They didn't care for pain, so Garrison didn't offer any. Death was efficient and clinical in a manner only possible to the old man in the profession of young corpses.

He held a man up as a shield, and threw another with his free hand. He crushed a charging soldier's skull beneath his boot with a sickening crunch. He caught a bullet in his bare hand, and used the resulting blood to blind the man who shot him. He heard Hou Yi fire off but saw as the round missed anything but rubble and ground. He needn't look up to know Reese had taken the rifle. She were an unyielding mistress and no matter how decent a shot Reese may have been, Hou Yi always proved too much for him. Another round crashed down a few inches from another man, though it scared the soldier sufficiently enough that Garrison could close the gap. A snap, crackle and pop later and the man was but a statistic now.

"Doctor, I'm ready for you now." He called after clearing a few more out. Sintred lowered from the shuttle on a winch, lowering too quickly for the old man's old bones. He landed down with a horrific crunch, and it was clear his leg had broken before the fighting could even begin. The frail old man was heaved atop of the hale old soldier and carried along to the bottom of the harpoons.

"Can you work, my friend?" Garrison said with a huff as he gently lowered the man aground. Sintred panted and seethed through his broken yellow teeth.

"Yes." He finally answered through pained breaths and muffled grunts. Emanual dragged himself closer to the console attached to the great steel cables and toggled through it.

"Sir." A man called through Garrison's comm. "More coming from your south." A shot from Hou Yi punctuated his report and it even seemed to hit it's target. Garrison stood to meet his foe equipped with nothing but his weapon and his grin.

The fighting was as thick as it had ever been. He saw the old war in the eyes of these new soldiers. He saw his first kill in the white of one soldier's eye as he tore it from their skull. He saw Akemi dancing with her blades all around him as he butchered his way through each of the children that thought themselves men.

He saw himself in a great lumbering man. He saw the arrogance of youth and the confidence of size. The boy was maybe even taller than Garrison, faster too. They locked horns, youth and vigour against whatever it was that kept Bernie alive even still. He saw the boy make all the same mistakes he had made at his age. The boy hadn't learnt a proper guard, he had probably never been punched hard enough to care for one. Had the commander been thirty years younger, he'd have snapped the silly little boy's jaw in a single swipe. Unfortunately, age had sapped him of his speed and power. He chose to feign a hook, and swing his creaking hip round to launch a kick at his thigh. It landed well enough, bringing the boy to a yelping knee. It took a simple swipe at the soldier's grasping arm before Garrison was close enough to take the boy's face into his hands. He slicked back his hair, lapped his fingers upon his cheeks... And twisted till he heard the snap.

"Commander!" Sintred called out. "There's a problem."

Garrison span, his wispy hair whipping across his face from beneath his rough spun hat.

"What is it?" He called. Sintred seemed reluctant to speak, though finally did after a moments contemplation.

"I can't disable the harpoons." He admitted. "They've locked it down completely but I do see one way of disabling it."

"How?" Bernie asked.

"Give me a grenade." Emanual laughed. The words dripped with a sad irony, some regret Bernie wasn't privy to.

"We cannot simply plant a bomb?" Garrison asked. He took Sintred's dire tone to be fatal though why such was true eluded him.

"No. I need to manually keep the charge valve open until the grenade detonates, else there will be no point. Once that happens, the device will detect the damage and reset. You'll be free to flee, old friend."

"Then I will hold it open. I am a soldier. It is my duty to die here, not yours."

"No, Bernie." An explosion rang out and caught his breath for a moment, though it seemed no immediate threat and so he continued. "I will not tell you how to die. It will be me, you've more than earned your retirement. You've been a hero all your life, let me at least be one at the end of mine." There was no argument in his voice. This wasn't a discussion, it was a last request.

A breath slipped Bernie. A breath held for too long. A breath taken in youth with the promise it would only be lost in his death. It seemed another man would make that death for him. It seemed he couldn't argue any longer. It seemed he was grateful, though the thought of gratitude disgusted him.

"Thank you." Bernie finally said, thick with sorrow. He pulled a grenade from his pack and placed it in Sintred's hand. "For the objective." He said, sealing the doctor's fingers around it. "And for the honour." He finished, handing a belt of half a dozen other explosives.

The winch raised, an explosion rang and they were free. Nobody looked back to see the old man die, nor did they bear witness to the thousands of dying civilians they had abandoned to their fates. Not a word passed any lips, not a thought went beyond the shuttle's escape and not a tear was shed as the great white tower grew smaller and smaller on the horizon.

The crumbling rings, the frozen titans, the army of corpses. The fields of golden grass masking the mountains of dumped corpses. The lines of infantry marching between towers in search of ill fated holdouts. The years of memories and tragedies. Their home, a warzone, now masked from the sunlight by the black cloud of fleeing children.

They kept pace with the grand horde of refugees as they fled east and south. They saw people clipped with rope to the undersides of medical vessels. They saw the remains of men who had been split in half on the front of a armoured transport.

A tense hour passed before a single word did.

"We should have stayed." Lara whispered.

"We didn't have a choice." Serah answered. She crawled from her seat to just behind Lara. "We had to go." She hugged around Lara's seat, barely able to wrap her arms far enough to stroke her sister's shoulders. She changed her approach, standing and wrapping her arms around the head of the seat and around Lara's neck; nestling herself at Lara's collarbone.

"But... We could have done more. We could have fought them off. Saved hundreds. Instead here we are, scurrying away like rats."

"You wanna save lives?" Reese sneered.

"No speeches, Reese. Not today." Lara quickly shut down.

"Not a speech. If you wanna save lives, you can." He calmly said. "Be a nightingale, join the rescue teams." He spoke as if he was pleading. Each word stressed far beyond his typical cadence.

"I'm a soldier, Reese. Not a nightingale." She sighed. She leant with the shuttle as she yawed to the right.

"So you wanna be a hero, then?"

"Don't we all?"

"Okay. Go be a 'hero'. Here, take my rifle; go die like every other hero in history. I'll be here slaughtering and butchering in the dirt. You'll go down in legend, songs will espouse your great deeds. A thousand men will owe you their lives, and a million more will owe you their deaths. Me? I'll head for hell. Maybe win the war on my way there. All who know me will curse me, and all who don't will have their lives because of me." He didn't raise his voice, nor did he speak aggressively. He almost sounded sad. He regretted that he was on this path, more so he regretted that he had put Lara on it too.

"Enough." Serah interrupted with a cold stare.

"I just..." Reese stuttered slightly under his wife's gaze. "Look... What we do is terrible at times, but it'll save the world."

"So... What? I spend the rest of my life committing calculated acts of malice and eventually somebody decides it was all worth it?" Lara laughed. "No great acts of good for the evil Raptors!" She mocked.

"Raptor's not for good people." He admitted. "But you don't have to be a good person, to be a great one."

The silence returned, as thick and terrible as ever. It lasted the entire trip to We'illa, and broke only as Ade poked her head through the window.

"Soldiers." She whispered.

"Yup." Lara replied. "We're here."

"Give me the comm." Garrison ordered. He tried to stand and take it as Lara offered it, but quickly fell to his knee. He grunted and clutched at his chest, sweat dripping from his skin.

"Bernie?" Serah called, grabbing him and resting him back into his chair.

"I am well, Serah." He lied. She pressed a hand to his neck and felt for his pulse. She failed the first time, then the second time too. It was only when she pulled out the vitals monitor that she could see his pulse.

"Bernie, you're crashing." She said, worry blatant on her face.

"But I'm not dying?" He asked.

"Not yet, but not far from it." She answered. "Stay there and don't move until we can get you to the medbay." She wiped the sweat from his brow and passed the comm along to him. He panted, his hand still held to his chest.

"Thank you." He bowed slightly, though the effort discomforted him visibly.

"We'illa control. Come in." He said, his voice faint and hoarse.

"This is control, please proceed to processing with all over vehicles." A man dismissed through the comm.

"Control, this is Raptor 1-1. Code Herakles. Challenge: Asphalt..." He trailed off. It seemed his thoughts had failed him.

"Asphalt, Bromine, Election." Reese offered. Garrison repeated the phrase back through the comm, though increasingly unsteadily. A moment passed without response until,

"Copy that, Herakles. You are clear. The Bidu has requested you land at bridge eight. He will await you there."

"Take us in, sergeant." Garrison finished. He slumped back into his seat while Serah fussed over him.

The ship broke from the horde, circling around We'illa. The great grey oasis in the sands. A manmade river flowed around the small military city. Desert trees grew and marked every street corner. At the centre was the capital fort, a great grey box of concrete and steel. It lacked the elegance and beauty of Elysium but held its own sense of rugged utility. Cadets marched the grounds and funnelled arriving civilians to marked registration points. It seemed the garrisoned troops were insufficient to control the onslaught of refugees. In response the upper year students at the great academy looked to have been levied.

"Bring back memories, darling?" Serah teased as she continued to fuss over Garrison.

"Yeah, strangest three years of my life." Lara admitted.

"I did not realise you only attended for three years?" Garrison whispered.

"oooh, lying on your resume? Busted." Serah joked. Lara shifted awkwardly in her seat and let an uncomfortable laugh slip.

"I mean... There was the rebellion, then I did two years before that whole spy family mission in Seoul. By the time that was over, it was my final year." She explained. "But I passed all of my exams!" She tagged on a little too quickly. Garrison chuckled lightly. His typically revelrous laugh reserved for a future man of greater stamina.

"Think you'll attend, Ade?" Lara asked soon after in some awkward attempt to change the subject.

"Would I not be too old?" She asked.

"They have late comer lessons but you'd be wasted in infantry, sweetie. Stick to science." Serah said. She turned to the young girl and became newly aware of the shocking quantity of blood the girl had been doused in.

"Oh my word, Ade. I'm so sorry. I haven't even asked if you are okay? Come here, let me clean some of that off'a you." Serah bothered. She placed a hand on Garrison's shoulder and pushed herself up from him. Then she promptly apologised for doing so upon hearing him wince in pain.

"I'm fine." Ade insisted. She pulled away lightly with a scrunched face as Serah attacked her with a wet rag to her face. She was perfectly at the crossroads between caring and rough though she seemed more interested in a thorough cleaning than Ade's comfort.

After what seemed an hour of fuss and cleaning, Serah dragged Ade into her chest while she repeatedly kissed away at the top of her head.

"I'm sorry." Serah whispered.

"Why?" Ade questioned.

"He took you from my grip. He shouldn't have been able to hurt you... I should have protected you. I let you down again."

"He didn't hurt me." Her voice had grown dreamy, like her eyes had just before she lost one. "I didn't let him." She whispered. "And when have you failed me?" She asked.

Serah let Ade free from her chest, though held the girls face in her hands.

"I couldn't save your dad." Serah began.

"The MOGs killed my dad. Not you."

"But I should have saved him." Serah insisted.

"Don't martyr yourself for him. His death is not your burden... Nor your failure."

"But your eye... I shouldn't have let you get hurt." Serah persisted in her pursuit of failure.

"Why is it your responsibility to protect me?"

"You're a child, Ade. Put in our care" She said with a motion to the squad. "Your safety is our responsibility."

"I never charged you with this..." Ade denied. "But none the less, you have clothed me; fed me; made me feel loved. You did your duty. My eye is not your failure. It is my gain. It gave me clarity, took my fear. When that soldier took me, had this been a week ago I would have frozen in fear or called out for help. It would have been fear of pain, of loss." She whispered. "Now I have lost everything. My mother, my father. My home and friends. I have hurt worse since meeting you than all the pain I have felt in my life up until that point combined. Yet by my age, Lara had lost her family too. She had began a rebellion and fought in a global civil war. Reese had never known his family. He had dragged himself up to the position of Sentinel. By my age he was already feared and respected around the world. You? You were the Rebel Queen. You were my hero growing up. Men would die by the thousand had you given the word. Tell me, who's responsibility was your safety? Who fussed over each little scratch you gathered on your journey? Pain made you all greater. It has done the same for me. I did not fear the soldier who could have taken my life. I had a plan. I took the pistol and I saved myself, nobody else. I took control. Control of myself, of my life... Of his. You claim responsibility for my life, but I deny it you. You may not claim my safety, you may not protect me. I do not intend this to be the last blood to sully my flesh. The ministry took everything from me. I will not have you give it back to me. I will take it."