OLD-WORLD EXTRA

***

At The Same Time

Kiera stood at the entrance of their camp, watching as her platoon ate their breakfast. Besides her was Lyra, sharpening her blade gauntlets, the light from a flickering holographic advertisement reflecting off them.

The two women were waiting for a signal.

Their first objective wasn't to protect the students, but to stop or at least delay the awakening of an unfathomable terror...

A Behemoth.

Right, a ten-core monster was slumbering in this ruin.

Templar was planning to awaken it and use it to distract Amon, giving them free rein against the professors and students.

They wanted a slaughter, and Emir tasked his army to minimize that as much as possible.

Fate was a tricky opponent, and it was close to impossible to beat, so they certainly had their work cut out for them.

[Emir arrived in the slums. Templar will most likely begin their real attack now.]

At those sudden words from Nathan, their headquarters, the entire camp stopped eating and turned to the two women.

Kiera gestured for Lyra to speak, recognizing the difference in their ranks.

She nodded towards her and stepped forward, pulling back the hood that covered her head.

"You heard him. We'll move in one minute."

Pointing behind her, she added:

"Low chance we see professors and HG leaders on the way, but in any case, ignore them. We need to complete our task in secret. They must not know we did anything."

The squad leaders stood up, and the rest of the platoon did so right after, stomping the ground hard and saluting her, their dominant hands on their second hearts.

"Yes Sir!"

Lyra turned around and stepped outside their camp, leaving Kiera to end her little speech, which she did:

"Our time begins now! Move! Move! Move!"

They did as their commander instructed, setting everything back to its neutral state-the tents, the cooking stations, and the devices they put up to secure the perimeter.

Just as one minute went by, everything was back in their rucksacks, and they were lined up perfectly behind the two, waiting for them to move.

And move they did, beginning with a sprint, their eyes alert as they scanned the darkness for any sign of movement.

The students were still near the entrance of the ruin, as were the professors and HG leaders, so they didn't try to keep themselves hidden, opting to go as fast as possible through the rotting platforms and debris-strewn tunnels.

Once they reached the station's entrance, they split up, each squadron and their leader going through different tunnels.

These tunnels all led to the same destination deeper underground but through different routes.

Lyra and Kiera watched them go, then turned around, going back to where they just came from.

There, just beside the entrance to the station, was another tunnel, housing many broken trains.

In a few steps, they reached the top of those trains, then jumped down the other side, stopping a foot before a massive hole in the train tracks.

They glanced at each other and then Kiera moved, breaking off rusted metal, and planting it like a pole near the hole.

After making sure it wouldn't fall anytime soon, she dropped down without hesitation, entering a place that used to be a passageway-turned cave.

Lyra joined her and they continued their sprint, this time much faster than earlier, no one weighing them down.

As they descended deeper into the metro, below its heart, the air grew colder, and the barely audible gunfire faded into the background.

The route became more treacherous, with collapsed sections, exposed wiring sparking occasionally in the dark, and destroyed constructs.

Here, they felt that Aether was heavier, pressing down on them.

Though alarming to their chance of survival, it was a good thing for the completion of their

task, indicating that the Behemoth had indeed slumbered here.

They and their people weren't going on a wild goose chase.

But suddenly, killing their momentarily joyful mood, a low robotic growl echoed in the distance, about a platform away.

It sent a shiver down Kiera's spine.

The construct down there was certainly a sub-rank above her.

She quickly glanced at Lyra and they both nodded, rushing to the sound's origin.

Templar had to be there.

The closer they got, the louder the growls became, as well as the sound of scraping metal and suppressed guns.

Since she was at the lead, Lyra saw it first, her eyes narrowing as she spotted seven people adorning Templar's insignia.

Her arms instinctively flicked, sprouting her blades.

Besides them, in the shadows, there was what could only be described as a weird creature; its form a mix of mechanical and flesh.

Once, it might have been a simple maintenance drone with security capabilities, but Aether and the flesh of other monsters it mostly likely consumed had turned it into something solely

unique.

It was a large car-sized drone, but instead of propellers it had weird arm-like limbs, elongated, ending in sharp, rusted claws, and its body was covered in a patchwork of metal and organic matter, while its bottom had spider-like legs, similar in shape to the one their platoon killed last night.

The creature's eyes glowed with a sickly green light, and its movements were erratic, as if it was struggling to control its own body.

Templar's soldiers surrounded the beast, throwing all they had at it, while three melee specialists went in close, with who appeared to be a Knight at the forefront, blocking its legs

from moving.

Kiera and Lyra didn't waste any time.

The moment they got close to the Templar soldiers, they exchanged another brief glance, and

the older of them reported:

[We've found one group. Engaging now.]

[Noted!]

No more words were needed; they knew what to do as did HQ.

Kiera tightened her grip on her rifle, while Lyra's blade gauntlets clicked into place.

Lyra's specialization embodied assassins, and that was how she moved, like an assassin, blending into the shadows, literally.

She moved from one shadow to the next until she was directly under who they presumed to be

their leader.

He was a Hell Weaver, shooting fireball after fireball, while those surrounding him used their guns, indicating that they were either Ragners or Gun Mages.

Those four were fully engaged with the mutated drone, absolutely unaware of the danger

underneath.

And just as another blast conjured out the soldier's staff, Lyra materialized above ground, melding out the shadows.

Before they could react, her gauntlets went forth, piercing through his shield, slicing his neck,

and cutting it right off.

"Deacon!"

His body fell, his head alongside it, and the place she stood on was lit up with bullets, a result

of his enraged cohort.

They weren't loud for long, as five bullets rang out and another of them fell, his body sizzling.

"AETHER STRIKE YOU DOWN!"

"DIE YOU HERETIC!"

Cursing up a storm, they turned to shoot at the person who killed their mate, Kiera.

Yet Lyra didn't allow them.

She appeared a step away from the one further back and cut her arm off with her left hand, stabbing the girl's neck with her right.

The last soldier fired at both of them in the brief moment it took for Lyra to kill his comrade, but his bullets found no target.

Lyra had sprouted a wall of shadow in front of him, using her fifth ability, Umbral Constructs.

She had long since unlocked it, directly after reaching Awakened's third sub-rank, Paladin.

But she wasn't that practiced with it and that showed.

A few bullets had gone through.

Fortunately, they hit nothing but the rubble,

Kiera had already flanked him, getting out of the way, and setting up a clean shot from the

right.

Kiera had already flanked him, setting up a shot from the right.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Another five and he was done in.

The first three disabled him and the last made sure that he was dead, splattering his head.

Now only the melee specialists remained, and they were too busy fighting the construct to

help out their team and attack.

But they didn't need to.

Reinforcements had quickly arrived, and with them came two bursts of bullets that intended

to end the duo.

In a slow-moving world, Lyra turned to Kiera, spotting where she stood, then raised two

fingers.

"Shadow Wall."

Two protective shields materialized, blocking the bullets, allowing them a moment to hide

behind cover.

Lyra snapped her fingers, signaling that she would move up, and quickly melded back in the

shadows.

Those soldiers were relatively strong, trained to handle situations like this, but they weren't ready for the cards Lyra held.

Her specialization was too uncommon, and they had no experience with Celestials of her type.

She was on them in seconds, her blades flashing as she took down the first soldier, a clean cut

through his neck.

Blood sprayed, and she didn't pause, already moving to the next target before they could even shoot at her.

Meanwhile, Kiera provided cover from a distance, her shots precise, ending the second soldier's life, body crumpling as a bullet pierced his skull, remnants of his brain falling into

the ground before he could even register the pain.

It might've seemed like it due to the difference in strength, but those soldiers weren't

pushovers. They quickly took formation behind their Knight as he conjured an Aetheric Bulwark, protecting the remaining two behind him from Kiera's bullets.