One after another the machines are dispatched. Aoife’s blade sinks deep into her target, needles of water spearing into the metallic shell along with the deep bite of her Gladius. The mass of metal topples, falls into a heap with a crash and her beside it.

The other’s volley of missiles, aimed for Selma, blossom into a harmless ball of blue-white fire when they’re detonated prematurely by Rivka’s blast. Her next shot blows a chunk out of its shell, a short prelude to its demise at the crushing weight of Crystal’s gravity well. The sound of crumpling steel is an unpleasant shriek that fills the empty street, echoing into the night.

Crystal can hear it from the perch she’s taken, high above the field of battle. Up there on top of the building she’s met by darkness, whipping wind and freezing rain unimpeded by the derelict structures that provide some protection to those below. Her field of vision is dim, a great expanse of darkness broken up only by the pin-point blue lights of the Nox diffusers that line the abandoned district. The barest glimpse of the moon can be seen through the carpet of clouds above, like a pale eye peeking through closed lashes.

When she turns her gaze down toward the street again she can see the lights, a tiny parade moving through the dark. A dozen maybe, red dots moving at a quick pace down the surrounding streets. More drones closing in on the team of Ars Magi down below. 

There’s something else, too. The flash of something in front of the moon, a shift in the weight in the air. Her warning comes as red light begins to gather in the air above her, an ominous glow that illuminates the shape of something huge hovering in the air above her. Its outline is sleek, almost insect-like. Four wings, one central body, and a long stinger protruding from its bottom. 

--but not a stinger, exactly. The tip of it is where the light gathers, and the point from which it lets loose the blast that carves through a chunk of the rooftop next to her. The beam slices neatly through the space just beside the girl, leaving a clean line of smoldering, red-hot concrete in its wake. A miss—but barely.

The four members of team Kheper can see the flash above them from the street below. Yet they have little time to ponder it before their earpieces crackle to life again:

“More coming down the intersection—prepare to engage.”

They round the corners of buildings, the heavy stop of feet signaling their arrival. More drones pouring in from intersection, from left and right. Cones of spotlights flash across the street, illuminating the four Ars Magi in their path as they march forward.