Waterstrider

Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fifthmonth, 1634 PTS

Every decision ever made in Karie’s life had led up to this moment. She was at the precipice of greatness, the opportunity to make her name known. Sure, being known as the commander of an army was not exactly the sort of fame she had sought, but she had calmed down during her month of labor and training. She was willing to take what she could get, and act in the manner that befit the times. Few became legends by acting foolish, after all.

“What are we waiting for?” asked Pakas Hadal, her second in command.

He had previously been the First Commander of their border forces, but had been demoted when Karie got the role. He hadn’t been particularly surprised. It was not only the fact that she was a member of the main bloodline and he was from a branch family, but also that she was a spirit refiner and he was merely in the core formation realm. It was natural for the weak to serve the strong, particularly in a time like this. The moment he had been told of the shift, he had easily shifted into the position of her advisor, making the best use of his experience.

“The Matriarch said that we are to wait until they destroy one of our properties before we take action,” she replied. “If we act too early, we will only give the Justice Office leverage.”

“I see,” he replied, and the two returned to silence, and Karie continued to lean over the railing to get a better view.

From this position, she observed the progress of the crowd. They were located a stack away from the riots, prepared to move out and intervene at any time. But they stayed still, watching their fellow Canvasians being dragged out of their homes and establishments to be beaten and tossed over the bridge past the district boundary.

Karie wasn’t even clear on what the cause of all this had been, and she didn’t believe it mattered all that much. All she cared about was the opportunity it brought her. She had only been in the meridian establishment realm during the previous war, and her mother had chosen to restrict her from participating. It wasn’t that Karie blamed her for this, as the death toll among foundation refiners and meridian establishers was extremely high back then. Had she fought back then, she knew it would be extremely unlikely for her to have survived to this day. Still, she had wished to earn glory for herself, and a part of her regretting missing the opportunity.

But now she was a spirit refiner, an elite, and she stood in command at the foundation of another war. She couldn’t help but smile as she continued to watch the rampaging crowd from above.

Due to her fixation on the riot, she failed to notice the frown on Pakas’ face as he watched the expression on hers, nor the deepening crease on his brow.

It took another ten minutes of waiting before the doors to a store owned by the Hadal Clan were broken down, the crowd’s momentum continuing to surge. Karie had been told to defend the people inside of the store.

She actually did have the capability to leap the gap between stacks now that she was a spirit refiner, but Karie had chosen not to do this. It would certainly be an awe inspiring feat that would drive attention towards her, but would be a breach of her responsibilities and could result in demotion. This went against Karie’s benefits. Instead, she went with a plan she had developed after extensive discussion with Pakas: a core formation practitioner had been placed inside of the store in advance, and now that the crowd was here, he would defend it from intrusion. Even those of the crowd who were armed would have trouble dealing with him. Unless the Heirs made a move, Karie was certain this would be more than sufficient. Meanwhile, she and the remainder of the force would keep an eye out for the movements of the Heirs’ forces.

After all, it would be surprising if they didn’t mobilize due to this.

Karie turned to Pakas.

“Have our scouts and informants found anything yet?”

He quickly removed a mobile terminal from his robe and checked its screen, but turned it off once more, shaking his head.

“Nothing. Perhaps they wish to de-escalate, and so they have chosen to not marshal their forces for this matter.”

Karie pursed her lips. It was possible, though she found the prospect doubtful. She had looked into the situation extensively before arriving. The Celans were busy with their front in Otan, but the tension within their force continued to grow against her own clan. Similarly, their own information network was commonly believed to be even greater than that of the Hadal Clan. They would certainly know that similar sentiments filled the clan, even among some of the elders. This war was not inevitable because both sides wished it to happen that much. It was inevitable because neither side could sufficiently trust the other.

“They’ll be coming,” she said, her tone speaking to her certainty about the matter. “It is only a matter of when.”

“Do you wish to send more scouts out?” he asked.

After a moment of consideration Karie shook her head.

“No, I suspect quantity is not our issue. I find it more likely that they are scheming something.”

“I see.”

Once again, the pair fell into silence as they continued to wait. Karie watched events unfold down by the store, but from what she could see, her subordinate had the matter well in hand.

Less than a minute later, however, she was lifted from her reverie by an odd sound at the edge of perception. She stretched the limits of her senses, drawing on the unique nature of genesis miasma to store and enhance them. As her sense of hearing grew, she was able to discern that it was the sound of shifting hinges and crumbling stone, and it was coming from the top of one of the stacks across the district boundary.

Karie frowned. It was certainly not a hallucination, but she had difficulty predicting what it might be.

“Pakas, send one of our scouts to find the source of that noise. I suspect it might be some sort of plot by the Celans.”

The man quickly bowed, and then raised his terminal again to contact the scouts. The machines were incredibly useful, able to streamline communication across the entire battlefield. As she waited for the information to return, Karie idly wondered about just how backwards the forces on Canvas were. Many of them had probably never even heard of a terminal before. While she was jealous of the opportunities to fight and journey and gain reputation that they had, she still found herself proud that her own clan’s technological foundation was rising far faster than most of her race’s.

Before too long, one of the scouts, a meridian establisher who used flickering miasma, dashed her way across a nearby bridge, her speed constantly shifting in a sort of stuttering pattern. When she made it halfway across the bridge, the sound stopped. Karie frowned once again as she glanced over at its source, seeing nothing but the large empty space and the skydock that both crowned the top of the stack. The next thing she knew, there was a loud crack as a small explosion lit up the afternoon sky, leaving cracks and a large hole in the upper surface of the stack. A large metal gauntlet reached out, gripping onto the stone and pulling itself upwards to loom over the space.

The black and bronze form of an enforcer stood above the stack, just three layers over the riot’s current location. Glowing orange mist dispersed between the plates on its frame, falling down around it. The scout couldn’t help but cease her run out of surprise.

Karie herself could not even speak due to her own shock. Just how long had that enforcer been there? Her people had been keeping a close eye on this area for over a decade, yet had no idea of its presence. Had they built it from small parts smuggled into the stack? She couldn’t even fathom how long that would have taken. But she was even more shocked when a second enforcer stepped out of the hole, and then a third. Three enforcers stood atop the stack, as if asking whether or not Karie wished to approach.

She heard Pakas sigh beside her, and mutter to himself before speaking up. She glanced at him.

“First Commander… an informant has finally spotted a brigade of Celan soldiers heading this way.”

She glanced once again at the trio of enforcers. It was more than she could manage by herself. But the presence of enforcers here broke the terms of the treaty, just as her own presence did. It seemed that both sides were acting as they wished.

If that was the case, then Karie herself would do the same. She met Pakas’s eyes, a wide grin splitting her face. Her opportunity was here. First Commander Karie Hadal of the Hadal Clan would make her mark on the station’s history right here and now.

“Second Commander Pakas,” she ordered, “mobilize our forces. We’ll destroy those machines before their reinforcements arrive.”

His face froze, but he slowly breathed out. He knew that matters had long been outside of his control.

“By your will.”

Celans and Bronze Alloys: [One interesting aspect of the materials technology possessed by the races of Celah is that a significant portion of them involve alloys of bronze. While still largely composed of copper and tin, these alloys used by the Celans are, despite this, able to survive vast stresses far superior to what the material should be capable of. Many aliens believe that the secret to this technology relates to the secrets of flickering miasma held by this civilization, but the truth is unknown, and no other race has yet been able to replicate them. Even reverse engineering of stolen fragments has yet to succeed. One fact considered of note by many who are aware, is that all known naeratanh is also largely composed of bronze alloy.]