Daz sat down beside her, and the boat shifted to accommodate. He offered a bottle of water, and with his foot slid a towel over the pooling blood at their feet. 

“[color=darkorange]Into the water, the fish won’t mind. Little sips, after, if you do,[/color] he said. “[color=darkorange]It’s a strange thing, putting your life in someone else’s hands. Trusting so much that they’ll protect you. I’ve been on either side of that window. It’s fear both ways; fear that they’ll fail you, fear that you’ll fail them. With Dahlia I feel both—I think she does, too.[/color]”

He took a pouch from the cooler, melonberry. The straw was like a thread in his fingers, but he popped it into place and brought it to his lips. It was empty in a single gulp. He looked to her, level, unjudging. 

“[color=darkorange]Why haven’t you left home, before?[/color]”

[hr][hr]
Silence blanketed the quarry. A great crater, miles of stone mined out into a gray field that soaked in the moonlight but wouldn’t shine. Even as the Saviors approached, the sound of their colossal steps went unchallenged, and when they came to a stop there was silence again. 

A flurry of drones followed them, dozens of Aerie’s eyes and ears.  

[i]Grauritter[/i] stood at the west end, [i]Magnifique[/i] to the east. Behind them, the outer barricade and artillery line would cleave through anything that came between them.

“[color=gray]Easy, boys,[/color]” Besca said. “[color=gray]It’s here.[/color]”

The station couldn’t have known for sure, they were rarely so accurate to the moment. But Besca had a sense; even a thousand miles away the hairs on the back of her neck bristled when she felt danger coming to her pilots. 

And sure enough, it [i]was[/i] here. 

A low, distorted hum rose, as if from the rock itself. The air crackled faintly, charged, and charging. There was brief static in the comms, but contingencies snuffed it. It was all so clear, here, as it always was. 

[i]Grauritter[/i] raised his arm, as if to pull something from his back. [i]Magnifique[/i]’s hands twitched, and he faced his palms to the ground.

The humming grew louder, the crackling turned thunderous. Far away the air folded on itself, shimmered, made refractions of its surroundings in odd, senseless patterns that, as the moments dragged, began to find their sense. They curved, curled, like someone bending a metal bar into a circle, and with each invisible exertion the stone beneath it cracked. Eventually its dimensions became clear, like the rim of a mirror, and its face was a perfect, dark reflection. 

At once the buzzing dimmed, the thunder calmed. There, untouched by the moonlight was a black mirror half submerged in the stone, as tall as the Saviors and several times as wide. 

For many moments there was silence again. 

Then the mirror shattered, and behind it was a void darker than the gaps between stars. 

Shapes spilled forth, so numerous it seemed like a flood of brackish water. They were terrible things as pitch as ink, and as lifeless. None measured taller than the Saviors’ own ankles, but none who had faced these tides before would dare underestimate them. 

[i]Grauritter[/i] closed his fist. Black light sprang from the seams of his gauntlets, and as he drew his arm up, a hilt appeared in his grasp. Atom by atom, as if drawn from the night air itself, a sword appeared, the blade nearly as long as he was tall. He swung it around into both hands, and the edges burst to life with flames like white neon. 

Beside him, [i]Magnifique[/i] closed his hands in, and in that motion, pulled from the air a pair of rings, like chakrams. He twirled them around on his fingers, and when he snapped his grip shut, their rims glowed to life as well. 

The barricade opened fire. Volleys of ballistics, explosives, laser-fire, all rained down upon the roaring masses. The air was sprayed with ichor and black flesh, but from the smoke and flames, the horde came furious and hungry. 

The Saviors charged. 

[hr][hr]
The initial panic had subsided quickly. RISC forces had secured the roads and soon enough, people saw the hundreds of armed soldiers and tanks and backup artillery, and decided they were likely safe still. The music stayed dead, the clamor hardly rose above a mild, incessant chatter.

Crowds began to move towards the boardwalk, to the screens, all of which now showed the dark footage from the quarry. Beneath the waves of trepidation and worry, there began to rise a current of excitement. This was the spectacle they had come to celebrate, the heroes they had come to cheer on, and the enemy they had come to see vanquished. 

On the far side of town, the space elevator sent Dahlia up, and she prayed Besca was right, and that she wouldn’t come down again until morning.