"Are you sure we"re not on my world?" Xiao Yan asked, suspiciously."Yes, I"m pretty sure." Remian said, pointing. "Your world doesn"t have airships from the Deutero company."
"But it looks the same." Xiao Yan said, with some disappointment. "People are still people, and dirt is still dirt."
With a short laugh, Remian turned toward the nearby town. "Come on. I"ll get in contact with my family first, and then bring you around to see other kinds of people and places."
***
At that time, Mindy, George and the others were having a bad day.
As the sky turned red and the sun began to set upon the day and the sons of man alike, the weary defenders of Dragon Lake heard once more the horns of war.
With earth-shaking roars, the colossal t.i.tans they battled stood tall, casting long shadows upon the land. Nine Tier-8 Emperor-cla.s.s Spectres surrounded by the countless forces of their kind. On their own side, the Emperors and Great Dragons had fallen or withdrawn, too badly exhausted and hurt to fight any more. The other Great Dragons were far away, and the nations of the world were silent, offering no word of hope.
Since the Rift was sealed, even their allies, such as they had been, had gone home, saying the job was done and the rest was up to the locals to handle. The unity of man had utterly failed.
So the remaining locals stood alone before Dragon Lake, holding the fort to prevent these ghostly a.s.sailants from reaching the heart of the Wildlands, the nests and nestlings of the Earth Emperor and the Wood Emperor. If they fell here, if they lost Dragon Lake…
Mal"thor-dras and Kor"ag-dras together declared that if they lost their home the humans would too. Everything in KarGoth and Three Pines, everything Remian and the others had put together, would be destroyed.
And the response of their dear "allies"? "Local problems should be dealt with locally".
George held his helmet in his hands, needing to put it on, but unwilling, his heart unable to move his hands to begin the sequence of actions he"d long gotten used to every time he stepped onto the field of battle. What did those "allies" of theirs care about the local community? Nothing. They were all too happy to see them annihilated beneath the remaining Spectres and then swoop in afterward to take everything left behind.
"In the end, it"s come all the way back to us, just us, defending our home." Mindy said, on his left.
"Even so, we"re not the same children we were back then." Tim said, on his right.
"I wasn"t even here." Darian offered, on the other side of Mindy.
"Me neither." Tang Yin added.
"Me three." Eriane chirped in from behind.
Chirpy also added her chirps to the conversation. [Me four!]
[You were here from the start!] Mindy shot back.
But her heart wasn"t in it. Her heart wasn"t anywhere.
"Any good words, Father Kairos?" George asked. "Something to lift our spirits?" One last time?
Father Kairos sighed, taking up his Bible. "My friends, I am a speaker of truth. Here, on this dark day, what more can I say that you have not all already understood in your hearts? Shall I speak of hope? Of such I have not the courage. Therefore, I can only speak of courage, and then hope for the best."
"Oh? And what courage can you speak of?" George asked, perking up just a little.
"Ours." Father Kairos looked around, and slowly put down his Bible. He looked on the faces of the people beside him, into the eyes of those at his back, and the backs of those who stood in front. "I will speak of the courage of those who stand here today. I see survivors who still stand despite all odds. I see the children of forgotten families, bound together in a family of their own making. And I see warriors of old, the likes of which the world has never had the luck to see again. I see the Iron Legion."
"Ho!" The weary shout was one of acknowledgment, and appreciation, a wordless thank you for being remembered. They, like George and the others, like Kairos, had long since considered themselves "locals" and not a foreign expedition.
Father Kairos took a deep breath, and went over to Max"s Memorial. "Sorry, Max. I"m going to need to borrow your stuff one last time."
Max"s picture fluttered in the wind, as if in response.
With a sudden leap, Kairos heaved himself into Max"s Frame.
"Father Kairos?!" Geoge blinked.
But Kairos didn"t answer him. Instead, he turned to the Iron Legion and roared, his voice enhanced by Max"s Frame"s Loudspeaker Rune. "In articulo mortis!"
"In articulo mortis!" a scattered response of grim voices arose. "Caelitus mihi vires!"
Father Kairos shouted. "Deo adjuvante non timendum!"
"Deo adjuvante"! Coming from Father Kairos, it suddenly meant something more.
"In perpetuum!" this response rose up like a wave. "Non timendum in perpetuum!"
"We will not fear, not ever!"
Suddenly, they knelt. Two hundred fourteen survivors of the ancient Iron Legion went down on one knee in unison, no longer voicing an anthem but sincerely joining a Priest in prayer.
Would they have so willingly joined their hearts with any other Priest, robed and proper and Bible-thumping? Unlikely! But here, on this field of Battle, they joined hearts and faith with this one.
And what a Priest! Father Kairos stood there in Max"s Battle Frame, blood-stained and covered in sweat and grime as much as any of them. When he voiced their anthem, it became a prayer. Holding up Max"s sheathed sword in clasped hands, he intoned. "Dirige nos domine, ad augusta per angusta!"
"Sic itur ad astra." The Iron Legion chorused together with him.
"Excelsior!" Kairos suddenly drew Max"s sword and raised it high.
"Excelsior!" The Iron Legion roared, their voices now shaking the air.
"Excelsior!" Mindy, Darian, and the defenders of KarGoth shouted in accord.
"Excelsior!!" Kairos turned to face the oncoming tide, and charged forward alone.
He did not turn back. He did not look to the left or the right. With a wordless roar, he ran full-tilt directly ahead, and as he ran, he threw away the sheathe. [For I shall need it no longer.]
Like a wave of sound, his voice was joined with the roars of the Iron Legion, an utterance of the last battle-cry as the clanking of falling steel sounded like rain; together with Kairos", hundreds of sheaths were thrown aside. "EXCELSIOR!!"
Then out of nowhere, as if all the world were shaking in response, there came the ring of a thundering bell. Once, twice, three times it rang…
"Is that… a church bell?!" George blinked.
But what a church bell! How did it get so loud? Where was it coming from? It sounded like it was coming from everywhere! From the ground, from the sky…
"There!" Mindy pointed directly upwards.
In an instant, the clouds cleared. The sky split open, and from above appeared a gleaming structure George had only seen in pictures. "T-the Basilica?!"
An ear-numbing chorus of church bells sounded together then, as hundreds of the same sound rang out in response on all sides. Bursting out from the clouds above them, hundreds of gleaming white airships descended onto the battlefield. In perfect timing, they rang together like a heartbeat.
Mindy recognized those airships. "Ecclesia! The Church has come!"
The Bells rang for a seventh time, and then beams of brilliant light shone down like rain covering the earth. They fell upon every warrior of the field, every charging Frame, and surrounded them with a protective energy aura. George could feel the power of the aura around him. It felt like he could walk right through lightning unhindered.
"Attack!" said a voice from above, and then the skies were flooded with light.
Sunset turned to high noon as the ma.s.sed firepower of Ecclesia"s battle fleet blasted into the forward ranks of the incoming Spectres.
George half-swore. "If this was what it took, we should have gotten a Priest to lead the battle charge from the start!"
His comms crystal was beeping, someone was trying to call him, but George turned away. "Not now! We"re busy!"
***
The same thing was happening with Phoebe"s crystal, Mindy"s, Tim"s, Darian"s, Eriane"s, Sabriane"s, Remian"s mom Lisa Vin, and Remian"s dad Damien Vin. All of them, however, were in the middle of battle or otherwise fighting a medical battle to save someone"s life, to save a casualty of that same war.
"What"s going on?" Remian was bewildered. "I can"t reach anybody."