Pretty looked at the comm channel on her helmets heads up display and blinked. Not being on the Old Guard’s roster meant that she didn’t need to follow any of the orders that had just come in. She turned around and looked at her squad. They all flinched at the same time.

Pretty knew that wasn’t for her. They had seen the video she had just ran through on five times the speed. The gory sight of an aug getting torn limb from limb, while his internal oils and hydraulics sprayed everywhere was disconcerting to say the least.

But Pretty had something else on her mind. Namely Ari.

“Everyone, follow me and cover me.” Pretty ordered and ran out before anyone could question her words.

Her helmet unfurled around her head as she ran to the temple. She saw one of the Earth men run in as she turned the corner. She sped up and followed the fire mage.

“Sir? Sir!?” Abesh ran into the temple and yelled.

Footsteps made Abesh turn to see Singh and Ari rush out.

“What is it?” Singh beat Ari to the punch.

Abesh looked at Ari “Sir, I don’t know what’s going on out there but the continuum guys, they just started deploying in groups. The rest that are left, they looked like they were panicking.”

Zing. Zing. Zing. Boom!

Ari and Singh looked at each other and then at Abesh.

“Is that…?”

“Fire from our weapons.” Pretty ran up behind Abesh and explained.

Zing. Zing. Whoosh!

“And that’s the old guard artillery.” Pretty added.

Ari nodded. The aug weapons weren’t subtle when they fired. Not to mention that the robot people and cyborgs footsteps weren’t distinct. That was true for everyone but General Athena’s people. Ari looked out and saw one of the heavy set cyborgs propel themselves on top of a broken rooftop to deploy a sniper rifle.

“What’s going on Pretty?” Ari asked in a calm voice.

“Reality tears. Anathemic outbreaks. Mutated creatures. And…” Pretty gulped “A warder and his ships.”

Singh held up a hand and in a calming tone said “Relax girl. Start at the top and explain what’s going on.”

“No time.” Pretty said in a frustrated voice and continued “If you need to go, you need to leave right now. They won’t let you leave afterwards.”

“She is right.” Scratch’s high pitched echoed in the passageway.

The commander looked back at the closed door of the room with the lifelike statue. The two continuum non-combatants who had disappeared in there a day back and not returned, emerged.

“Sir? Should we assist?” Abesh asked.

“With what?” Pretty snapped at Abesh.

Abesh opened his mouth to snap back and stopped at the look Ari shot him.

Ari looked at Abesh as if he had lost his mind. They did not know what they were fighting. Or had any weapons and boy wonder here wanted to jump headfirst into a battle that was not his. Sometimes Ari forgot how young Abesh was. He shook his head.

Singh mirrored his look and answered for him “She is right boy wonder. You don’t have a assault weapon. And even if you did, we are refugees here.”

Ari took the time to look at Scratch. She looked much like before. Charlie somehow looked different, and it took Ari a second to note that a few of the man’s dreadlocks had turned red.

“Abesh, run back to our people and make sure they are packed up. If things go south, we are retreating to the platform whether it is ready or not.” Ari ordered without looking at his subordinate.

Abesh gave the commander a searching look and then nodded slowly “Yes, commander.”

Ari could blame the boy. They all knew that the way the ring reacted meant that they had fifty-fifty chance of reaching back home or dying.

Click. Screech!

Ari turned to look at the door that shut behind the two noncombatants walking out. Ari straightened and tapped his foot while they slowly walked to him.

“Charlie. Scratch. We have a problem here.” Ari stated while pointing at the firefight that was about to begin.

The two civilians looked at each other and their shoulders drooped.

Ari looked from one to the other and asked “Please tell me you can get us out of here.”

Scratch dismissed the question with a gesture “Oh that. Yes. The problem is not that. Its… Our leader… We just heard that he sacrificed himself to save us.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Ari stopped and looked at the two, and then he turned back when the cyborgs began to fire with their compressed air arms that sounded more like conventional weapons.

“I am sorry you two but…”

“Yes. Yes.” Charlie shook his head and began to walk alongside Ari “Don’t bother with that. Ghost was going to end up dead or like that one way or another but following that event things just took a turn sideways.”

“What do you mean?” Ari asked.

“The yaksha, Agni has decided to intervene.” Scratch scratched her nose.

“Let’s run and talk.” Charlie said and began to jog out of the temple.

“Okay, what is happening?” Ari asked when he caught on.

“You have no context to the events prior to these so I will keep my explanation short. The trails have creatures. The raks shoved them into the anathemic outbreaks and or now using them as canon fodder. There are more than five hundred monstrosities heading here right this moment.”

Ari lost a step and then paced back up “We need to get out of here.”

“Yes, the yaksha wants that too and we need to do that quickly because there is Silver City warder in the trials who is shutting every portal down.” Charlie gave Ari a complicated look “But you should know that your retreat will lead to further complications.”

Scratch caught on huffing and panting “Listen, commander. What we are going to do is not going to make a door between the two realities. We will create a bridge. The bridge will take an hour to stabilise after you leave here. An hour for us. For you it will be almost instant.”

“No, it will take a minute or less to appear over there.” Charlie corrected Scratch

“Semantics.” Scratch screeched and continued “It will be a small bridge so when you start sending your gun monkeys back here, send them ten at a time or less. We will stay here in the temple, and we have been tasked to keep it safe from the continuum.”

Scratch looked up at the sky “You know he could have given us a quest for that.”

“Stop being greedy, Scratch.” Charlie chided his friend.

“Excuse me, sir. The tin cans want us to hurry.” Abesh ran up to Ari and stated.

“We are hurrying.” Ari asked in an irritated tone.

“No sir. That’s not the point. The order came from the mentor. I just thought you should know, sir.” Abesh said in a confused tone.

Ari looked at the boy wonder and then at Charlie.

Charlie stopped a dozen feet from the black ring “Commander. Agni is the yaksha of fire, truth and knowledge. And in his name, I impart this knowledge. You retreat here will mean that the warders, the one that you came here with will have no allegiance to you and yours. Do you still wish to leave?”

Pretty stopped next to Ari “We need to rush.”

Scratch muttered “Tell them to give us ten minutes.”

Pretty ran to them and skidded to a stop “Scratch. You don’t have it. The warder is a warder Shiang and he his way here. He just destroyed a cockroach the size of a sand dune and now he wants to purge everything in sight”

“Commander!” A stern male voice boomed in the courtyard. Ari looked at the helmeted continuum soldier standing just outside the temple gates. The man withdrew his helmet to reveal his face.

Jay 7 scowled “You need to leave right now if you want to keep living.”

Charlie stepped ahead of Ari “Don’t you threaten these people in front of me Mentor.”

“Shut up weasel.” Jay 7 spat out and shook his head “We don’t have time for this. Charlie, if they do not want to die because of the deal they struck with us, they need to leave right now. And if you want to prevent their deaths, you need to help them.”

Charlie scowled and looked at Scratch. They both nodded and flashed away, appearing next to the ring. They were so fast that Ari felt the air from their steps tickle his beard.

Ari looked at Jay 7 and then at Pretty “We are leaving, but we will be back.”

Jay 7 nodded “Good. Get me the soldiers commander. And good ones. Your worlds future depends on that.”

Ari grimaced and then looked at his men “Boys, get to the platform.”

Ari pointed and stopped. The two continuum non-coms were lifting the heavy stone ring with their strange gadgets on their wrists. They both stabilised the ring in the air and placed it down vertically facing Ari and his team.

Thoommmmm…

The ring vibrated as it came down and began to sputter out fiery sparks in the air. Ari pushed his men towards the ring. Ari was faster than his men and he decided to stay to rear. He also had unfinished business.

Scratch ran back to him and handed him the stone “Here take this.” and handed him a dark piece of stone. “And make sure there is a void shard near it.”

Ari opened his mouth to ask, how was he supposed to make sure of that when she continued “It is a dimensium anchor. Rush to the void stone. It will be the black one. After it stabilises, guard the bridge after it stabilises and by the faded gods make sure you have enough space.”

Ari gave Scarcth a cluless look “Just do yourself favour. Stay out range when it arrives and hide.”

Ari didn’t know what most of it meant. But he took the black stone handed to him. The way it was previously explained to him was that it would disappear from his hands. And appear some distance from him creating the other half of the bridge. And they weren’t supposed to touch it after that until it stabilised.

Ari nodded and turned to look at Pretty. Before he could say his goodbyes and booming voice announced “Continuum! This is Warder Shiang Jaxxmilius. Halt your actions. Now!”

Ari glanced upwards at the source of the voice.

There was a shiny chrome flying saucer rushing towards them. Ari blinked watching it zip everywhere. It shot out a beam that erupted a few miles away in a fountain of gore and sand.

“What in the…”

One of Pretty’s people ran to Nameer and handed him a sack of grain.

“Nameer, this is mem-steel. Go. You all need to hurry up. If he gets here…”

Another voice yelled “Oh my gods, it’s just locked on to the ring.”

Ari grabbed Nameer and sped up. Almost dragging the man with him.

Nameer looked back with widening “Is that a UFO?”

Ari pushed Nameer ahead “Go! Go!”

Nameer looked back once, gulped and ran.

“Stop. I will not repeat myself.” Warder Jaxx Maximilius boomed across the city remains.

Ari looked up and stopped in slack jaw amazement when he saw a flying disk floating above them transform from a disk to an orb. He had seen images of spaceships and long faced aliens in movies and posters but this was the real deal and it was coming towards them. Ari felt goosebumps rise up as he watched his men rush to the ring.

“It’s ready.” Charlie screamed.

“Go. Go. Go! Go through now…” Ari ordered and watched his men hesitate only for an instant and disappear into the dark green ring.

“By the Light. If I see anyone of you self mutilating morons I will shoot.”

The continuum soldier all around Ari stopped. It was so sudden and eery that Ari couldn’t help but do a double take. One moment, they were all moving like large humanoid tanks the next they turned into statue.

Ari took in a sharp breath and turned around. He had to get to safety and the ring was only ten feet away.

“You! Whoever you are. Stop or be fired upon.” The voice from the orb ship warned.

Ari engaged his quicksilver shard and everyone of his step began covering two or three steps. He looked back and saw the orb ship shoot down towards him. Underneath it stood a wide eyed Pretty.

Ari smiled and yelled “Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”

“Fire!” Warder Jaxx yelled.

Ari hair stood on its end and he used all the momentum he had to jump into the ring.

Zzzzung!

The orb ship opened fire.