[b][i]Chapter One, Desperation in Lingayen, Part Four[/i][/b]

[b]Lingayen Beach, Municipality of Lingayen, Lingayen Gulf[/b]

As the People's Liberation Air Force (Technically the People's Liberation Army Air Force, but that was more of a mouthful) was routed by the valiant Vietnamese Lotus Squadron, their innovative tactics, and their jets, Nil's efforts would be aided, then rewarded, as the City of Lingayen was rendered safe for yet another day. As the tide turned, the platoon of soldiers menacing Nemo was mown down by fire from Captain Castro and Kaitlyn, their lives as 'Arms Master Wranglers' cut short in order to allow the child Arms Master more time to recover and either continue menacing his attackers.

Alain, meanwhile, was destroying the boats moving up Lingayen Bay with careful blasts, thus further keeping the city beyond the defenders' lines safe. A battalion of infantry with light machine guns and RPGs had followed him, and were supporting his efforts.

However, as the battle raged, then slowed down, the enemy themselves were vanishing. Corpse after corpse. Wreck after wreck. Troop after troop. Over the course of the past several minutes, the battlefield had drawn to a distinct quiet all across the gulf. It was a silence fit to wake the dead, as the Philippine Army found itself suddenly staring at beaches devoid of opposition.

Out on the water, Chinese transport ships bobbed without movement, their engines hot but movement idle. The sun beamed down with a heat uncharacteristic of dreary weather and more appropriate to the summer month that it was. The glare of the ocean blurred the horizon, the dark shapes of proper warships lying in wait to begin the dying bombardment once more.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

There had been before.

The sun grew brighter.

[i]The second sun.[/i]

High in the sky, far larger and closer than it had any right to be, a second "sun" seemed to loiter, a searing heat able to be felt all across the gulf. The cloudy day had evaporated, the zone over the ocean hazy with heat waves.

The sun [i]bulged[/i].

A searing beam, a titanic ray of light that left spots in the vision of onlookers, lashed out like a whip towards the eastern shore of the gulf. It traced all across the strip of sand in a flash, a speed akin to someone standing at the epicenter of the sun and merely drawing their finger across their vision. A molten trench trailed in its wake, greenery igniting violently and the nearest buildings to the shore shaking and going up in bursts of flame.

The beam met Ari's shield with a shriek and chest rumbling roar. White-hot flames washed over the titanic barrier, turning blue with licks of orange as they expended their initial payload of force. The barrier seemed to glow brighter in response, straining against the tidal wave of destruction, but it held... for now.

Meanwhile, outside the dome, at the fiery beam's approach, a massive shadow had bled into existence around its edges. It was almost as if it had waited to act till the moment it had the blinding flash of the incoming attack to use as cover, but act it did nonetheless. Allies of the Philippines near to the light dome, close enough to reach the shoreline would find a crackling ebony ooze, swirling with green, to rush over their feet like a wave. A feeling like being on the edge of receiving the greatest static shock of one's life thrummed through their bones, raising goosebumps on skin and making hairs stand on end.

And with a sudden, chilling yank on the feet buried in the "liquid", they would find themselves plunging into the depths with a firmness quicksand could only envy. There was a brief sense of vertigo and falling, as those snatched were thrust through a whirling kaleidoscope of black and green... before being spat out again within the bounds of the light barrier.

Nemo, Hannie, Kaitlyn, and her Corporal's squad, and many others besides who had been in reach before the onslaught of destruction. All of them found themselves safe and sound... if potentially a bit sunburned.

All around, the shadow had somehow penetrated the barrier -perhaps by digging under it, considering its strangely fluid nature- and now ebbed with a hair-trigger tension around the feet of the defenders within.

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